WHAT IS WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION?
 

The purpose of whistleblower protection is to provide employees with a safe way to report any abusive practices they detect in the course of their work.

Whistleblower protection aims to improve the transparency of activities and good governance in different organisations and to promote the realisation of the public interest in several areas of legislation.

Whistleblowers, in other words persons who report abusive practices, often have access to such information relating to a suspected breach that the management of the organisation or the public authorities would not otherwise obtain. Thus, whistleblowers play a key role in exposing abusive practices, and therefore they must be provided with protection.

To achieve the objectives of the Whistleblower Act, the relevant actors must undertake to provide a safe and secure reporting channel to their employees and manage it in an appropriate manner. It is also important to raise awareness of whistleblower protection among employees and the general public. This, for its part, lowers the threshold for reporting.

The Act on the Protection of Persons Who Report Breaches of Union Law and National Law, also known as the Whistleblower Act (site in Finnish), entered into force on 1 January 2023. The Whistleblower Act implements nationally the Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law, the so-called Whistleblower Protection Directive.