Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whistleblowers can use a variety of internal or external channels to communicate information or allegations. Over 83% of whistleblowers report internally to a supervisor, human resources, compliance, or a neutral third party within the company, hoping that the company will address and correct the issues. A whistleblower can also bring allegations to light by communicating with external entities, such as the media, government, or law enforcement.^[1] Some countries legislate as to what constitutes a protected disclosure, and the permissible methods of presenting a disclosure. Whistleblowing can occur in the private sector or the public sector.

Whistleblowers often face retaliation for their disclosure, including termination of employment. Several other actions may also be considered retaliatory, including unreasonable increase in workloads, reduction of hours, preventing task completion, mobbing or bullying.^[2] Laws in many countries attempt to provide protection for whistleblowers and regulate whistleblowing activities. These laws tend to adopt different approaches to public and private sector whistleblowing.

Whistleblowers do not always achieve their aims; for their claims to be credible and successful, they must have compelling evidence so that the government or regulating body can investigate them and hold corrupt companies and/or government agencies to account.^[3] To succeed, they must also persist in their efforts over what can often be years, in the face of extensive, coordinated and prolonged efforts that institutions can deploy to silence, discredit, isolate, and erode their financial and mental wellbeing.

Whistleblowers have been likened to ‘Prophets at work’,^[4] but many lose their jobs, are victims of campaigns to discredit and isolate them, suffer financial and mental pressures, and some lose their lives (such as John Barnett (whistleblower) who died on the day he was due to give deposition testimony as a whistleblower against Boeing, and David Kelly (weapons expert) who was found dead two days after the UK parliamentary Intelligence and Security and Foreign Affairs select committees publicized that he would be called about the dubious claims used to convince the UK Parliament to vote to invade Iraq).