Can a PhD thesis be confidential? A colleague of mine had an excellent PhD project and she published good papers during her PhD. When I asked her to give me her PhD thesis, she told me she can't because her PhD project was confidential (commercial, military, ...).

I wonder if a PhD thesis can be confidential? Isn't it available in her university library?

Can a funding organization set this limitation for the data included in a PhD thesis?

Anyway, what if her future employer asks for her PhD thesis?
There are two ways that a PhD can have restricted access.

First, many people will pay to keep access to their thesis restricted so that they can try to publish it. The policies vary depending on the company the university uses to publish the theses. Usually, however, the time is 3 years or less.

Second, the government can classify the thesis in part or in whole. This happens when something discovered or revealed in the thesis is considered to be a matter of national security. Even though the information may not have originally been classified, and your friend may not even have access to classified material, in many countries—and certainly the U.S.—the government retains the right to restrict information through the classification process ex post of any information that it deems threatening to national security. The level of classification depends upon the level of threat, and your friend could be subject to legal repercussions from sharing that information with you.