Frequently asked questions

SpeakUp is an ethics and compliance platform that brings misconduct reporting, employee disclosures, and case management into one system. Compliance, legal, HR, and risk teams use it to receive reports, run investigations, and manage disclosures like conflicts of interest from a single environment. More than 750 organizations across 30+ countries run their reporting and disclosure programs on SpeakUp.

SpeakUp is built for compliance officers, legal teams, HR, and risk professionals, primarily at organizations operating across multiple countries. Case handlers use it to manage investigations, employees use it to report concerns or file disclosures, and compliance leaders use its analytics for board-level reporting.

SpeakUp is built for organizations with 1,000 employees or more, up to global enterprises with hundreds of thousands. Customers include Nestlé, Daimler Truck, Electrolux, Primark, Swarovski, and METRO AG. The multi-entity, multi-language, and multi-jurisdiction features matter most to organizations operating in more than one country.

Yes. Organizations run separate reporting and disclosure channels for different business units, brands, or subsidiaries within a single SpeakUp environment. For identity and access, SpeakUp supports up to 10 identity providers in one environment with email domain mapping, routing employees automatically to the correct login system.

SpeakUp Report handles reports of wrongdoing, including whistleblowing, HR grievances, and supply chain concerns, letting reporters stay anonymous throughout. SpeakUp Paths handles proactive disclosures, such as conflicts of interest or gifts and entertainment, where the person submitting is identified through single sign-on. Report is for addressing wrongdoing someone wants stopped; Paths is for declaring something openly for approval.

SpeakUp enables you to be compliant in a complex field of privacy regulations, such as the GDPR, data retention guidelines, and data localization requirements.

We highly value information security & privacy standards. Our organization is ISO27001 certified, and follows the guidelines of ISO27002 and ISO27701.

Our Privacy & Security System is audited every quarter on the basis of ISAE3000 Type II. This means that tangible proof exists that we have fully integrated and effective procedures in place in our day-to-day operations. In other words, this level of assurance goes far beyond bi- or tri-annual ISO certifications.

SpeakUp is a tool to help organizations to be compliant with the requirements of the European Whistleblower Protection Directive. SpeakUp complies with the requirements of the Directive for a secure and confidential internal reporting channel.

Organizations also need to check whether their other internal reporting channels and follow-up procedures meet the minimum requirements of the Directive.

Encryption is crucial for protecting the reporter’s identity and company data. SpeakUp uses the highest level of encryption for your data at rest and in motion.

Multi-Factor Authentication (also known as two-factor authentication, or 2FA) is an authentication method that uses, in addition to a username and password, one or more tools to validate a user's identity. Due to the sensitive information within SpeakUp we advise that you enable MFA to strengthen security.

Whistleblowing software gives employees and other stakeholders a secure channel to report misconduct, fraud, or unethical behavior, separate from the usual management chain. SpeakUp's whistleblowing software supports anonymous and named reporting across web, phone, mobile app, and proxy, so a report reaches compliance teams without going through a manager who might be involved.

No specific software is mandated, but the outcome usually is. Organizations with 50 or more employees operating in the EU must provide a secure, confidential internal reporting channel under the EU Whistleblowing Directive (Directive 2019/1937). A shared inbox or generic email address fails the confidentiality and record-keeping requirements.

Without a dedicated channel, employees often say nothing, especially when the concern involves a manager or colleague they see daily. A whistleblowing system gives people a low-friction way to speak up and gives compliance teams an auditable process instead of word of mouth. Programs with two-way anonymous follow-up keep reporters engaged after they submit: SpeakUp customers maintain a 49% reporter check-back rate against an industry average under 30%.

Misconduct doesn't stop because no one has a way to report it; it just goes undetected longer. Without a formal channel, organizations typically learn about problems through informal channels, resignations, or a regulator, all more costly and more damaging than catching an issue early. A documented internal reporting channel is also a specific requirement for many employers under the EU Whistleblowing Directive.

A complaint is usually personal: someone's pay, treatment, or working conditions. Whistleblowing concerns harm to other people, the organization, or the public interest. The distinction matters because whistleblower protections under the EU Directive attach to the second category, not the first. In practice the line is blurry, which is why SpeakUp handles both: personal grievances route through HR grievance workflows and public-interest reports through whistleblowing within the same case system.

SpeakUp is built to lower the barriers that keep people from reporting, offering full anonymity if the reporter wants it and two-way communication so a case handler can ask questions while the reporter's identity stays hidden. Reports come in through web, phone, mobile app, or proxy in 100+ languages, and every submission and follow-up is logged for an auditable case record.

Yes. SpeakUp Report covers more than whistleblowing. HR grievances (workplace conduct, harassment, discipline-related complaints) and supply chain grievances (concerns raised by suppliers, contractors, or workers across the value chain) run through the same case management system, providing one audit trail instead of a separate tool for each type of report.

SpeakUp Paths is SpeakUp's disclosure and approval platform. Employees use it to declare situations that need transparency or sign-off, such as conflicts of interest, gifts and entertainment, or donations and sponsorship, rather than tracking them in spreadsheets or email threads.

The most common are conflicts of interest (outside roles, personal relationships, or financial interests that could affect someone's judgment at work), gifts and entertainment (hospitality received or given above a policy threshold), and donations and sponsorship (company support for external causes or events). These are examples, not a fixed list: you can set up disclosure types that match your own policies, each with its own review and approval workflow.

No, and that is intentional. Unlike SpeakUp Report, where reporters can stay anonymous, Paths submissions are always named. Employees log in through single sign-on, so compliance teams know who is declaring a conflict of interest or requesting approval for a gift.

Yes, without developer involvement. Form fields, approval hierarchies, escalation triggers, and notification rules are all configurable and can differ by entity, region, or employee level. A gift disclosure can require manager sign-off below one threshold and compliance review above it, with different thresholds in each market.

Sienna is SpeakUp's AI layer, built into the reporting and case management process. It summarizes and structures incoming reports, extracts details like incident type and location, supports multilingual voice reporting, and helps case handlers get to the substance of a case faster without reading full message histories.

Sienna Insights is a paid add-on that lets compliance teams ask plain-language questions about their case and report data (e.g., how many cases came from a specific office last quarter) and get back a chart, table, or short summary instantly, without building a report or exporting to a spreadsheet.

The existing analytics are structured reports and dashboards: useful, but you're limited to pre-built views. Sienna Insights answers unanticipated questions. "How many cases did we open in EMEA last quarter, and how does that compare to the same quarter last year?" returns an answer immediately, rather than requiring a new report.

No. Data you use with Sienna AI stays inside your organization's environment and is never used to train AI models. Results are also limited to what the person asking already has permission to see.

Through whichever channel fits the situation: a web form, a phone line, SpeakUp's mobile app (iOS and Android), an AI-powered voice agent, or a proxy. Reports through SpeakUp Report can be anonymous on any of these channels; disclosures through SpeakUp Paths are submitted by name through single sign-on.

There is no live interpreter listening in on a report. SpeakUp transcribes and translates each message, forwarding both the original language and the translated text together, so a case handler can verify the translation at any point. This intake is available in 100+ languages.

Yes, for reports submitted through SpeakUp Report. Reporters choose their own level of anonymity and can stay fully anonymous while still exchanging follow-up questions and answers with a case handler. The platform does not collect IP addresses, device fingerprints, or identifying metadata. Disclosures submitted through SpeakUp Paths are always named.

The report lands in SpeakUp's case management system, where it routes automatically by category, severity, or geography. Case handlers triage it, ask follow-up questions through the anonymous channel, run the investigation, record the outcome, and close the case with a full audit trail. Sensitive cases can be restricted to named handlers or moved into a separate access-controlled domain.

Retaliation goes beyond dismissal. Under the EU Whistleblowing Directive it includes demotion, withheld promotion, changed duties, reduced hours, negative performance reviews, exclusion from projects, and reputational harm. It also covers threats and attempts.

Usually yes. The EU Whistleblowing Directive reverses the burden of proof: once a reporter shows they suffered a detriment after reporting, the employer has to prove the detriment had nothing to do with the report. Documenting the reasoning behind personnel decisions involving a known reporter matters.

Partly. Anonymity removes the most direct route to retaliation, and a complete audit trail makes it much harder to claim a decision was unrelated to a report. The platform provides the evidence and the protective channel; the policy, the training, and how leadership responds do the rest.

SpeakUp provides configurable data retention rules, data localization options, and controls over lawful processing of reporter and case data. The platform gives compliance teams the levers to meet GDPR requirements.

SpeakUp holds ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certification and is audited quarterly against ISAE 3000 Type II. The platform is also TISAX assessed. Auditing on a quarterly cycle provides documented proof between audit cycles, not just a single yearly snapshot.

Cases remove automatically after a defined retention period, and you set your own retention rules. Case data can also be anonymized automatically using AI, so investigation records can be kept for trend analysis and audit purposes after personal details are no longer needed.

SpeakUp provides the secure, confidential internal reporting channel that the EU Whistleblowing Directive (Directive 2019/1937) requires organizations to offer. The Directive also expects specific follow-up timelines and non-retaliation protections that depend on internal policy and process.

SpeakUp is used to support compliance with Germany's Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG), the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), and, for financial and technology risk reporting, DORA and NIS2.

A whistleblower's identity is the thing most at risk if a reporting system is compromised. SpeakUp encrypts data at rest and in transit using AES-256, protecting reports, messages, and case files.

Case files often contain reporter identities, investigation notes, and details about people who haven't been found guilty of anything. SpeakUp supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) so a stolen or guessed password isn't enough on its own to reach a case.

Most organizations go live within 8 weeks, depending on the complexity of the rollout. Your compliance team can configure channels, forms, workflows, and access rules without technical support, and a dedicated Customer Success Manager guides you through setup, testing, and training. Multi-entity rollouts across several countries may take longer.

SpeakUp connects with your identity provider and Microsoft environment. Employees sign in through single sign-on, with support for up to 10 identity providers in one environment and email domain mapping that routes each employee to the right login automatically. Case and reporting data can connect to Microsoft SharePoint and Power BI. For other systems, talk to our team about your requirements.

Pricing depends on the size of your organization and which features you need. See current plans on the pricing page, or request a demo for a quote tailored to your organization.

There is a one-time implementation fee on top of your flat annual license fee, with no per-seat or per-employee charges. Case management is included in every product, whether you run the full platform, SpeakUp Report, or SpeakUp Paths alone. Sienna Insights is available as a paid add-on.

SpeakUp's team runs implementation alongside your current contract, imports historical case data so trend analysis carries over, and assigns a dedicated Customer Success Manager for setup, testing, and training.

SpeakUp brings misconduct reporting, grievances, and disclosures into one platform, so your team works from a single case management system instead of separate tools. Sienna AI is built into the workflow, not bolted on: it structures incoming reports, supports voice reporting in 100+ languages, and helps case handlers get to the substance faster. Your compliance team configures channels, forms, and workflows without technical support, and pricing is a flat annual fee. SpeakUp brings more than 20 years of experience, and its customers maintain a 49% reporter check-back rate against an industry average under 30%.