WHAT
On the basis of the newly adopted Austrian Whistleblower Protection Act, the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences has set up a whistleblowing system. The legal objective is to take precautions against any economic crime by providing the possibility to report incidents of economic crime to an objective internal reporting office at any time.
Incidents of wrongdoing may be reported in the following areas only:
- Public procurement
- Financial services, financial products and financial markets as well as the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing
- Product safety and conformity
- Traffic safety
- Environmental protection
- Radiation protection and nuclear safety
- Food and feed safety, animal health and animal protection
- Public health
- Consumer protection
- Protection of privacy and personal data as well as the security of network and information systems
Notice
Please do not use the whistleblowing platform as a feedback channel or to submit complaints! Violations of regulations under labour law, such as working hour violations, discrimination, sexual harassment, bullying, etc., are not covered by the whistleblowing system. Such incidents must be reported to the designated offices.
You can also find the Diversity and Equality Unit on the selection page for your concerns.
WHO
The Whistleblower Protection Act protects people (whistleblowers as well as people in their proximity, for example) who report violations of Austrian and EU law in connection with professional work. The law precludes the civil, criminal or administrative liability of whistleblowers and prohibits consequences under labour law as well as reprisals such as the discrimination, bullying, suspension, refusal of a promotion or termination of whistleblowers.
The Whistleblower Protection Act protects people (whistleblowers as well as people in their proximity, for example) who report violations of Austrian and EU law in connection with professional work. The law precludes the civil, criminal or administrative liability of whistleblowers and prohibits consequences under labour law as well as reprisals such as the discrimination, bullying, suspension, refusal of a promotion or termination of whistleblowers.
TYPES OF REPORTING OFFICES
There is the possibility to contact an internal reporting office (within the organisation) or an external reporting office.
There is the possibility to contact an internal reporting office (within the organisation) or an external reporting office.
Priority of the internal reporting office
The law states that whistleblowers should first contact the internal reporting office with their information and only contact an external reporting office if those attempts were unsuccessful.
External reporting office
The Federal Bureau of Anti-Corruption (BAK) accepts tip-offs as an external reporting office.
REPORTING PROCEDURE
- An information text on the system and on identity protection appears.
- You then choose the category of the tip-off.
- On the reporting page, you decide whether you wish to remain anonymous or not. The incident should then be described. A file can also be enclosed as supporting evidence (also ensure your anonymity in any enclosed files!).
- Your contact partners can be found here.
- The tip-off can be sent immediately or after a delay.
- Once your tip-off has been submitted, automatically generated access data will be displayed to enable you to respond to any follow-up questions and view the progress of the case. Please keep this access data safe to enable follow-up questions!
CONFIDENTIALITY
Experienced personnel committed to secrecy accept and process incoming tip-offs.
- You can submit tip-offs with or without disclosing your name. Every tip-off is treated absolutely confidentially.
- No identification information is sent to possible contacts.
- Your report undergoes stylometric processing, which means that redundant punctuation is removed and all words are written in lower case.
- All information is end-to-end encrypted, thereby securing your sensitive information.
Nevertheless, should you submit a tip-off, we ask that you keep the automatically generated access data safe and check the system for possible responses. This will help in investigating the reported incidents – especially if something about your tip-off is unclear or there are outstanding questions.
PROTECTION
A claim to protection only exists if the whistleblower had sufficient grounds to assume at the time of submitting the report that the reported information regarding violations corresponds to the truth.
A claim to protection only exists if the whistleblower had sufficient grounds to assume at the time of submitting the report that the reported information regarding violations corresponds to the truth.
ATTENTION!
In the event of deliberately false tip-offs (e.g. defamation), consequences under labour law, criminal law and civil law cannot be ruled out for the whistleblower.
In the event of deliberately false tip-offs (e.g. defamation), consequences under labour law, criminal law and civil law cannot be ruled out for the whistleblower.
How our whistleblower system helps protect your privacy
- No identifying information is provided to the contacts.
- Your message will be stylometrically redacted to provide you with an even higher level of anonymity. We remove all punctuation and convert all words to lowercase."
- All information is end-to-end encrypted, so your sensitive information remains safe.
What you can do to protect yourself
- You are not on the corporate network (Internet/VPN).
- You should not use a device (smartphone, computer, etc) that is provided by your employer.
- You should not use the kinds of idioms or abbreviations that you frequently use in conversations or when writing emails.