RightsCon Toronto 2018

Press freedom is a pillar of democracy that holds the powerful accountable and sheds light on uncomfortable truths. Whistleblowers play an essential role in uncovering wrongdoing committed by the powerful. Those who do have the information that can hold powerful individuals, organizations and governments to account - citizens, NGOs, journalists, lawyers, and activists - are increasingly and more severely under threat as a result of whistleblowing: professionally or personally discredited, hounded through the courts (breach of confidence, defamation, theft), and in some cases, physically threatened and harmed.

The Signals and the Whistleblowing International Network (WIN) proposes a panel to address questions such as:
- How to advance the public interest by encouraging transparency, accountability, reporting and whistleblowing?
- How to build a holistic, cross-sector network to create a pro-active dynamics towards whistleblowers around the world?
- How to develop legal, social, digital and practical solutions to ensure information on major wrongdoing is not blocked?
- How to coordinate media to investigate on valuable information provided by a whistleblower?
- How to better protect whistleblowers?
- How to maximize the impact of the information and investigations to obtain concrete change?

During the discussion, we want to achieve concrete outcomes such as:
- Create cross-sectors collaboration opportunities between media, civil society, lawyers and whistleblowers
- Offer new partnership opportunities
- Imagine campaign ideas
- Imagine innovative technology solutions