31st January 2024
This WIN Spotlight showcases our highlights from 2023. We have handpicked some of the stories and events that demonstrate our progress and achievements within the whistleblower movement. We are proud of all the contributions we made in 2023, and this is just a glimpse of them. If you want to know more, please visit our News & Events pages. For now, let's dive into our highlights in chronological order:
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January - WIN welcomed newest Trustee: Elizabeth Gardiner
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February, March - 3-part Special Series of Whistleblowing Now and Then podcast on official secrecy and whistleblowing
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June - Paying people to do the right thing, WIN & Protect seminar
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July - WIN welcomed newest Member: HRLC, Australia
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September - Anna Myers featured on BBC’s ‘The Real Story’ and launch of Tech Workers Handbooks
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November - New CEELI Report following WIN collaboration
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December – New Whistleblower Protection Guide published by international accounting body, IFAC, and CPA Canada
We were delighted that Elizabeth Gardiner - the Chief Executive of the UK's whistleblowing charity Protect - was elected as our newest addition to WIN's Board of Trustees at the start of the year.
Liz is an employment solicitor who joined Protect in 2018 to supervise the legal advice service - which has advised around 50,000 whistleblowers in its 30-year history. She was made CEO in 2020.
The series ‘The Public Interest and National Security Whistleblowing: Looking Back, Thinking Forward’ explores the history of secrecy around the world, the importance of holding governments to account in the most sensitive areas of state conduct, and the failure to properly protect national security whistleblowers.
We spoke to international experts working to enhance whistleblowing protection, defend press freedom, and bolster civil society. We examined how secrecy and liberty; security and openness became competing concepts within democratic societies. We considered these questions within and across national and regional boundaries, looking at the UK, the US, Europe and Latin America.
Celebrating World Whistleblowers Day, WIN collaborated with Protect to host an online seminar examining the pros and cons of adopting US-style whistleblower rewards programmes. The event featured WIN’s own Executive Director Anna Myers, Professor Giancarlo Spagnolo - Professor of Economics at the University of Rome II and Professor Wim Vanderkerkhove - Professor of Business Ethics at EDHEC Business School.
We were thrilled to announce the Australian-based law centre, the Human Rights Law Centre, have joined WIN. The HRLC has a long history of advocating for protecting human rights and now is working hard for stronger whistleblower protections in Australia. They are recognised as a leading source of policy expertise in the field. In August, the Centre launched its Whistleblower Project – a landmark, Australia-first legal service to protect and empower whistleblowers.
WIN’s Executive Director Anna Myers joined co-panellists on the BBC World Service radio programme, the Real Story, hosted by Shaun Ley to discuss the reality and difficulties of whistleblowing.
The Signals Network published two new handbooks on whistleblowing in the Tech Sector for Ireland and the UK, in collaboration with WIN, Protect as well as legal experts, journalists and whistleblowers.
The guides aim to help tech workers make informed choices by providing a concrete and balanced overview of the whistleblowing landscape and highlighting organisations and resources available to support whistleblowers. The two new guides are part of a series following the release of the original Tech Worker Handbook in the US in October 2021.
They were launched at the Frontline Club in London featuring interviews with UberFiles whistleblower Mark McGann and Facebook whistleblower Daniel Motaung (see Fireside Chat with Paul Lewis (Guardian).
In a collaboration between WIN and the Central and Eastern European Legal Institute (CEELI), we co-hosted two roundtable discussions in Prague in March and November. Ida Nowers, WIN’s EU Whistleblowing Monitor Law and Advocacy Manager spoke at both events which gathered regional and international experts from civil society, academia and specialist government agencies. The second roundtable coincided with the publication Beyond Paper Rights: Implementing Whistleblower Protections in Central and Eastern Europe written by Kieran Pender, calling for improvements in the region.
See link to video footage about the event in March.
The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and Chartered Professional Accountants Canada (CPA Canada) jointly published a new report titled Understanding Whistleblower Protection: Laws, Practices, Trends and Key Implementation Considerations. Written by WIN’s Executive Director, Anna Myers, with support from experts in WIN, it aims to provide important insights to professional accountancy organisations (PAOs), professional accountants, relevant authorities, and policymakers globally regarding the current issues in adopting and implementing whistleblower protection legislation.
As we begin the new year, we want to remind our membership, and anyone interested in whistleblowing to send us their news and events. We will share them on our website and social media platforms. If you have a relevant story or event to share, please send an email to info@whistleblowingnetwork.org. Thank you!