The Cambridge Whistleblowing Saga

This is an update concerning the Employment tribunal I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

The claimant in the case is Professor Wyn Evans of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. Now that he has finished given evidence, it is now possible to release some of the background publicly. You can read a summary here. If you follow that link you will see reference to this guest post, published on this blog in late 2022:

https://telescoper.blog/2022/11/02/guest-post-the-bullying-of-hannelore/

That old post was carefully anonymised for legal reasons, but it can now be revealed that the Department concerned is, nor surprisingly given the affiliation of the claimant, the Intitute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.

I will refrain from commenting further as the case is ongoing, but you can follow updates here. There is also piece about the case in the Guardian here.

P.S. Yes, it has taken a very long time for the matter to reach a head.

1/2 UPAC, Quebec's anti-corruption agency, is investigating leaks from the Ministère de l'Économie. The key question is whether this was simply an unauthorized disclosure or whether it could be considered #whistleblowing.

If confidential information was released for personal or political reasons, an investigation may be appropriate. If it was intended to expose government waste, mismanagement, or wrongdoing in the public interest, the situation looks very different.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/upac-frechette-whistleblower-9.7233168

Existing research suggests that big #whistleblowing awards are effective, while small ones may actually deter speaking up. This may be because they promote a mental cost-benefit analysis. In the financial sector, this would be a small award when set against the loss of future earnings and probability that they will never work in the sector again #britishcolumbia

https://voiceonline.com/b-c-securities-commission-issues-first-whistleblower-award/

The B.C. Health scandal, in which officials were wrongfully fired and one committed suicide after an erroneous report and botched investigation, wrapped up almost a decade ago. The consequences of the gov't's negligence are still being unravelled, though. #whistleblowing

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/fired-bc-ministry-staffer-wendy-taylor-9.7229430

EL PAÍS: Frances Haugen: ‘We are worse off today than when I leaked the Facebook documents’. “Haugen now lives in Puerto Rico (she understands Spanish but doesn’t speak it). Her years at Google, Pinterest, and Facebook are behind her: she has founded an NGO, Beyond the Screen, aimed at making social media more transparent. She spoke exclusively to EL PAÍS in Barcelona after taking part […]

KPMG Australia dismissed its whistleblower's concerns as ‘unsubstantiated’. Now its CEO has resigned, regulators are circling and parliament is asking whether KPMG should be running a whistleblower hotline for other companies

https://www.blueprintforfreespeech.net/en/news/stench-from-kpmg-australia-whistleblower-scandal-grows

#KPMG #Whistleblowing

SecureDrop Inbox 1.3.2 is now available!

This update adds warnings and safeguards when deleting large numbers of sources.

https://securedrop.org/news/securedrop-inbox-1_3_2-released

#OpenSource #Whistleblowing

The Guardian: Meta legal action forces Facebook whistleblower to sit in silence at Hay festival. “Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams was forced to sit in silence on stage at an event at Hay festival, after lawyers advised her not to speak because of ongoing legal action brought by Meta.”

SecureDrop Workstation 1.6.2, for Qubes 4.2, and 1.7.1, for Qubes 4.3, are now available!

These releases remove the legacy SecureDrop Client and enable an upgrade script to make preparing for the Qubes 4.3 upgrade simpler.

https://securedrop.org/news/securedrop-workstation-1_6_2-and-1_7_1-released

#OpenSource #Whistleblowing #Electron #Qubes