The importance of confidentiality and anonymity in a whistleblowing system

Posted 26 January 2022

Whistleblowing requires a strong purpose to begin with since disclosing fraud is not easy to do due to the fact that whistleblowers may face threats to their career and safety. In this regard, whistleblowers’ intent to disclose can be enhanced through a guarantee and response from an organization.

Confidential and anonymous in whistleblowing systems

One of the best methods to avoid retaliation against whistleblowers is to keep their identities hidden. Therefore, a guarantee to safeguard a whistleblower’s identity is paramount. There are two distinct methods for safeguarding a whistleblower’s identity, namely maintaining confidentiality and enabling anonymous reporting.

Confidential reporting occurs when whistleblowers provide their identities but those are kept confidential and will not be disclosed to the public or any party without their explicit consent. As for anonymous reporting, the whistleblowers’ identities are not known. They may later opt to disclose their identities in the inquiry after a trusting connection has been established. Although anonymous reporting can provide a strong incentive for whistleblowers to come forward, many organizations discourage it as it is deemed to cause obstacles to the investigation. However, it all depends on the third-party whistleblowing system solution your organization chooses.

How Canary WBS ensures the safety of the whistleblower’s identity

As a third-party whistleblowing systems solution, Canary WBS provides a combination of various reporting channels that are centralized on website applications. Clients also have the ease of accessing reports while ensuring the safety of the identity of the whistleblowers. Our solution offers whistleblowers several options:

The whistleblower agrees to report an issue by openly sharing his/her information and permitting his/her personal information to be shared with the company/institution. This allows the company/institution to contact the whistleblower if necessary.
The whistleblower shares his/her identity but requests confidentiality. His/her identity is kept confidential and is not shared. This allows Integrity Asia to contact the whistleblower if necessary, without exposing him/her to any risk of retaliation.
The whistleblower remains anonymous. Through the Canary Mute feature, whistleblowers can receive an update on their case and can be contacted for further inquiry without providing any personal information, such as an email address or telephone number, which reduces obstacles to the investigation.

For more information regarding the Canary® Whistleblowing System and other compliance services.