ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY USE IN THE WHISTLEBLOWING PROCESS

• Published in: Economic and Social Development: Book of Proceedings pp. 130 - 138
• Main Authors: Mirjanic, Zeljko, Cosabic, Jasna
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Varazdin Varazdin Development and Entrepreneurship Agency (VADEA) 29.06.2017
• Subjects: Cellular telephones; Communication; Confidentiality; Cooperation; Corruption; Data integrity; Information technology; Law; Legislation; Personal information; Public interest; Smartphones; Social change; Society; Technology; Technology utilization; Violations; Whistleblowing; South East Europe; Europe
• ISSN: 1849-6903; 1849-6903

Whistleblowing, being increasingly recognized as a necessary form of fight against corruption and other unethical acts, is spreading in both the European Union and the posttransitional countries of the Southeast Europe. In the whistleblowing process, we recognize open, confidential and anonimous whistleblowing, with the identity of whistleblowers usually protected by confidentiality. While open whistleblowing does not suppose identity protection, confidential whistleblowing requires detailed legal protection of whistleblowers identity, by law on whistleblowers protection or by law on personal data protection, or partly through labour law and civil servants law. The third type of whitleblowing, or anonimous whistleblowing means reporting corruption and unethical acts most often with the use of information technologies, such as online reporting plaftorms, smart phones applications, hotline calls, etc., when whistleblower's personality is hiden, with the information technologies playing the role of the identity protection, which in case of confidential whistleblowing is given to laws. These technologies enable receivers of corruption reports to have a dialogue with the whistleblower, investigate the accuracy of reports without revealing the anonimous person's identity. The subject of the analysis is a question of how the information technologies used in anonimous whistleblowing may substitute the identity protection at confidential whistleblowing, and what are the advantages and disadvantages of anonimous whistleblowing, comparing to confidential whistleblowing. A crucial question is whether the information technologies used in the whistleblowing process may alleviate the negative effects of inadequate legal protection, i.e. the lack of adequate legal protection or non-implementation of current legislation, which problem is pronounced in Southeast Europe. On the other hand, when the identity protection is not an issue, technology use enables far more important social influence to the protection of whistleblowers due to constant and timely informing the public on wrongdoings done against the whistleblowers or threats of being done.