The aim of the project was to develop a trustworthy AI component that supports both whistleblowers and clerks of a whistleblowing system through partial automation.
Employees or other involved persons often avoid reporting violations such as non-compliance with guidelines, bullying, or sexual harassment for fear of negative consequences. These consequences can include discrimination, sanctions, or even job loss. A trustworthy reporting channel is therefore essential. The focus lies on receiving high-quality reports that help clarify incidents quickly while protecting the whistleblower. However, conventional reporting channels often require high manual effort from caseworkers. The reason is that report texts are rarely sufficient, and whistleblowers usually have only limited time for queries. Consequently, many companies hesitate to implement whistleblowing systems due to high costs for analyzing reports or the potential misuse of information for false accusations or corruption.
EU Directive 2019/1937 on the protection of whistleblowers had to be transposed into national law by December 2021. Compliance 2b GmbH, a start-up founded in 2020, took on this challenge. Together with RISC Software GmbH, the company developed the Act4Whistleblowing web solution. This solution enables secure, anonymous exchange of information between whistleblowers and companies. In addition, it allows employees to process reports more simply and innovatively. In a further expansion stage, the partners are developing a trustworthy AI component. This component assists whistleblowers in submitting their reports through partial automation and helps clerks process them more efficiently and with fewer errors.
The system automatically derives information from texts and compares it with structured data in the form of a plausibility check. Thus, new possibilities open up in the process. For example, the system can request additional information from whistleblowers in real time. At the same time, it supports case handlers by pointing out potentially incorrect information or by highlighting results from similar cases. Moreover, the higher quality of reports increases the chances of successful case resolution and reduces the likelihood of false accusations.
The research project was funded by Austria Wirtschaftsservice (“aws”) as one of 12 out of 68 submissions in the second round of the call “Digitalization – Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence”
Data Scientist
