Reporting breaches of law and misconduct
As employees, you are often the first people to spot any wrongdoing in your organization. By providing relevant information, you can help ensure that breaches of law and misconduct are exposed, investigated and prevented. The Whistleblower Protection Act (Hinweisgeberschutzgesetz, HinSchG) protects whistleblowers against disclosure of their identity and discrimination in the best possible way.
Point of contact for students and non-members of the University
Point of contact for students and non-members of the University
Besides members of staff, students at the University and its external partners can also communicate their concerns or indications of misconduct or a breach of the law to the Internal Reporting Office via this digital system. All reports are treated in strict confidence and in accordance with the Whistleblower Protection Act.
How the whistleblower system protects you
How the whistleblower system protects you
- No identifying information is provided to the contact persons.
- Your report is altered to render it even more anonymous in nature, by removing doubled punctuation marks and making all words lowercase.
- All provided information is end-to-end encrypted to ensure that sensitive disclosures are kept secure.
Reporting
- You can report an incident anonymously, if you wish. If such is the case, do not provide any personal information that could enable you to be identified. Before sending off a whistleblower/tip-off report, you must consent to the Internal Reporting Office involving further persons as necessary to review and investigate potential breaches of laws, regulations and/or company policies. Those individuals who have access to submitted whistleblower/tip-off reports are under strict obligation to uphold confidentiality regarding reports and their content. Disclosure of these reports is only mandatory under exceptional circumstances, such as in official investigations or legal proceedings.
- After submitting a report, you receive credentials giving you access to a special area for you only. The Internal Reporting Office may contact you as necessary, if any questions arise. You may provide additional information if you wish. You can use the personal access area even if reporting anonymously.
- Please note before filing a report that the identity of a whistleblower who reports false information regarding violations either intentionally or with gross negligence is not protected, and that such individuals may incur legal penalties. In cases of doubt, state that what you are reporting represents your suspicion, for example, or that you are reporting what somebody else said.
- After filing a report, you receive a receipt confirmation from the Internal Reporting Office. Within a maximum of three months of receiving your report the Internal Reporting Office will get back to you regarding any follow-up measures planned or already taken, outlining the reasons.
- You can contact your Internal Reporting Office at any time for any questions you may have, without necessarily using the system.