LAB 15 - Safe Whistleblowing

19 November 2015 - 16.00-17.30 - Room 9, Palais de l'Europe, Interpretation: FR/EN/RU

Is whistleblowing a threat to democracy or a necessary element of democratic control over institutions? How can whistleblowers be protected by the risk of abusive prosecution? This lab will present platforms to connect whistleblowers with journalists and to safeguard whistleblower’s anonymity.

Initiative 1

Publeaks, Free Press Unlimited, The Netherlands

Free Press Unlimited supports investigative journalism. Often it is not in the interest of governments, multinationals or other institutions to have certain topics investigated and even in more mature democracies, obstruction or worse might be encountered by journalists. Publeaks is an open source project started by a group of dedicated journalists and ICT professionals in the Netherlands, who created an anonymous, censorship-resistant whistleblowing platform. It provides a safe online environment for journalists and sources to communicate with each other. Since the inception of Publeaks in September 2013 at least 34 new stories have been published by Dutch media through the platform.

https://www.publeaks.nl/

Presenter(s)

Mr Teun GAUTIER, the Netherlands, Chairman of the Board of Publeaks

Teun Gautier (1968) is a publisher from The Netherlands with a long career in journalistic media. He started his working life with Reed Elsevier to become a board member in The Dutch operation at 29. He started several publishing companies and was CEO of De Groene Amsterdammer, with which he co-initiatied De Correspondent. Gautier also initiated Publeaks, a platform that connects whistleblowers with the 42 participating Dutch media organisations. He is currently member of the board with Veronica, a media development foundation and Chairman of the Board of Publeaks. Gautier is strongly dedicated to the development of new businessmodels and infrastructure for journalism.

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Initiative 2

Globaleaks, Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, Italy

GlobaLeaks is a framework to support whistleblowing initiatives in multiple contexts. In the last four years of their experience, a diverse range of fields has adopted whistleblowing as practice to address problems in the field of democracy and economics. GlobaLeaks provides solutions for technological needs of whistleblowers, so that whistleblowers can more easily focus on content.

https://www.globaleaks.org/

Presenter(s)

Mr Claudio AGOSTI, Italy, Co-founder, developer and advocate of GlobaLeaks

Claudio Agosti is a software developer and privacy analyst. 16 years ago Claudio was developing software on computer security. Now, like the internet, he has grown up, and has started to be more concerned about the security of the humans behind the computer. At Tactical Tech he currently leads the Trackography project. Outside of Tactical Tech, he works on GlobaLeaks as co-founder, developer, and advocate.

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Discussants

Discussants are invited to take part in the Labs in order to share their experience with the presented democratic initiatives and try to bring broader perspectives to the following discussions.

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Ms Nica DUMLAO, Philippines, Programme Coordinator, Internet Rights, Foundation for Media Alternatives

Nica Dumlao is a young feminist activist from the Philippines. She currently leads the Internet Rights programme of the Foundation for Media Alternatives by coordinating its content-development, public information and communication, constituency-building, and capacity-building initiatives to advance Human Rights in digital environments. Nica is part of the steering committee of the Philippine Internet Freedom Alliance, the broadest nationwide network of organizations and individuals fighting for the promotion and protection of rights and freedoms in cyberspace in the Philippines who challenged the constitutionality of the Cybercrime Law before the Supreme Court.

Moderator

Mr Erdoğan İŞCAN, Turkey, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Turkey to the Council of Europe

Erdoğan İşcan is Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Turkey to the Council of Europe since 2014. Before coming to Strasbourg, he has been Deputy Undersecretary of Political Affairs, as well as Director General of Multilateral Political Affairs, at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 2009 to 2011 Mr İşcan has been Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, Seoul, and from 2005 to 2009 he has been ambassador to Ukraine in Kyev.

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Cartoonist

Mr Guillaume DELOIZON