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Whistleblowing Portals

Ethical Advocate

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Ethical Advocate, LLC · ethicaladvocate.com

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Ethical Advocate: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai Ethical Advocate: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

Ethical Advocate at a glance

Vendor
Ethical Advocate, LLC
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Ethical Advocate 2/5, the mean of 6 judges. Ethical Advocate, LLC is a hosted software-as-a-service whistleblowing hotline whose strongest dimension is intake: reporting channels scores run 6 to 7, crediting a website and a 24/7 call center presented as anonymous and confidential, translation into 200 languages, an ADA Title II-compliant platform version and a follow-up portal. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 3 Nov 2026; evaluated by the panel 4 Nov 2026. all sources

Ethical Advocate alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The SME Operator

Weighted verdict

Runs a 60-employee company that the law obligated, not convinced. Optimizes for compliance set up in an afternoon at a price the year-end review will not question, with the legal duties handled by the product. Rejects per-report fees, setup charges and anything that needs a compliance department to operate.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The SME Operator

Panel median The SME Operator This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The SME Operator
Reporting channels & reporter experience 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
Case management & deadline discipline 2.5 of 5 2 of 5
Legal compliance alignment 1 of 5 1 of 5
Security & anonymity assurance 2 of 5 2 of 5
Group & multi-entity capability 1.5 of 5 1.5 of 5

Reporting channels & reporter experience

How this is scored

The intake side: how a reporter actually submits — web form, anonymous dialogue, phone or voice message, languages, accessibility — and whether anonymity survives first contact.

0 — Not a reporting channel; a general contact or survey form with no anonymous route and no way to reach the reporter afterwards.

3 — A web form that accepts anonymous reports, with a case number or access code the reporter can use to check the report later.

5 — Anonymous two-way dialogue through a protected mailbox or access code, the reporting page in several languages, and use on mobile devices without an app or account.

8 — Several channels (web, voice message or phone hotline, in-person meeting requests, QR or intranet entry points), broad language coverage with translation of messages, accessibility addressed, and voice distortion or another anonymity measure for spoken reports.

10 — Intake engineered around the frightened reporter: every channel usable anonymously, dozens of languages, WCAG conformance stated, no app or account required, and the vendor documents how the reporter's identity is kept out of the channel itself.

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The SME Operator

Reports come in through both a website and a 24/7 call center, anonymous and managed by a third party, with a follow-up portal so a reporter can check back after filing, and translation into 200 languages through the call center plus an ADA Title II-compliant version of the platform. We found no public information on mobile use without an app or account, or on voice distortion or another anonymity measure for spoken reports. 1 2 3 4

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Case management & deadline discipline

How this is scored

The case worker's side: triage, the statutory deadlines (7-day acknowledgement, 3-month feedback), roles for case handlers, documentation of each case, and retention and deletion.

0 — No case handling; reports are forwarded by email and handled outside the product.

3 — Reports collected in a case list with status, notes and messages to the reporter.

5 — Reminders or deadline tracking for the 7-day acknowledgement and 3-month feedback, case handlers assigned with roles and permissions, and notes, documents and the full dialogue kept per case.

8 — Statutory deadlines tracked automatically with escalation, conflict-of-interest handling that excludes implicated case handlers, a tamper-evident case history, retention and deletion periods applied per case, and caseload statistics or management reports.

10 — A case system an external investigator can rely on: configurable investigation workflows, a complete audit trail of every access and change, deletion automated to the statutory retention periods with evidence, and statistics prepared for the annual report or the regulator.

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The SME Operator

Case management integrates hotline and web reports into one central repository with status, assignee, reviewer-level access control, private notes, files and the investigator-reporter dialogue retained under a complete audit trail, plus statistics and Excel export. But the captured pages say nothing about the statutory acknowledgement and feedback deadlines or any reminder and escalation for them, and retention is described as keeping everything rather than deleting after set periods — the legal duty itself is not handled here. 1 4

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Legal compliance alignment

How this is scored

How specifically the product implements EU Directive 2019/1937 and its national transpositions (HinSchG et al.): which statutory duties it maps to features, which countries it names, and how it keeps up when the law changes.

0 — Generic feedback or survey software with no reference to the whistleblowing obligations.

3 — The directive or HinSchG named on the vendor's pages, with the product presented as a way to meet the duty to provide an internal reporting channel.

5 — The statutory duties described as product features for at least one named national law — confidentiality, the acknowledgement and feedback deadlines, documentation of reports, and deletion after the retention period.

8 — Several national transpositions supported with their differing details, templates or process guidance (reporting policy, employee information) provided, and legal review by named counsel or a documented process.

10 — The product is a legal instrument: per-country rule sets kept current with a stated update process, documented legal review, and guidance for edge cases (group-wide channels, external ombudsman set-ups, works council involvement under the BetrVG) published.

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The SME Operator

The regulatory obligations named on the pages are American — Sarbanes-Oxley, the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the federal contractor anonymous-hotline statute — and the training content covers the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. We found no reference to EU Directive 2019/1937 or any national transposition, no statutory-deadline features, and no policy templates or documented legal review, so the alignment shown does not match the law that obligates me. 1 2 3

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Security & anonymity assurance

How this is scored

Whether the confidentiality promise is engineered and evidenced: encryption, IP and metadata handling, penetration tests, certifications of the vendor and its hosting.

0 — Reports are not protected as confidential data; the product makes no security or confidentiality commitment for them.

3 — Encrypted transmission and storage of reports stated, and a commitment that reports are confidential.

5 — Encryption of report content described with some technical detail (end-to-end or at rest with key handling), a statement that IP addresses or metadata are not logged, and an ISO 27001 certificate for the vendor or its named hosting provider.

8 — A certified ISMS covering the product itself, regular third-party penetration tests stated, the encryption architecture documented, metadata minimisation explained, and a security contact or disclosure policy published.

10 — Assurance a hostile auditor accepts: current certificates with their scope published, recurring pentest summaries public, the cryptographic architecture documented, and anonymity analysed against the operator itself — the vendor explains why it cannot unmask a reporter.

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The SME Operator

Encryption of reports, exchanged communications, private notes and files with a complete audit trail is stated, and a third-party audit based on the credit card industry's standards is said to have resulted in a 'high-level security certification'. No certificate is named, and we found no public information on ISO 27001, penetration tests, the encryption architecture or how IP addresses and metadata are handled — nothing here I could hand an auditor. 4 6

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Group & multi-entity capability

How this is scored

Whether one contract can serve a corporate group: separate channels per legal entity, central oversight, ombudsman access, white-labelling.

0 — Built for a single organisation only; a group needs one separate contract and instance per company.

3 — Several reporting channels or companies managed under one account.

5 — Separate channels per legal entity with their own case handlers, a group-level overview, and branding per channel; access for an external ombudsperson or counsel possible.

8 — A multi-tenant group structure: per-entity channels, languages and branding, delegated administration per subsidiary, external ombudsman roles, and group reporting that respects entity boundaries.

10 — Group compliance as architecture: hundreds of entities managed centrally, per-country legal rules assigned per entity, white-label reporting pages, and access separation strong enough to satisfy each subsidiary's works council — all documented.

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The SME Operator

Hotline and web reports sit in one central repository with tracking by geographic location and operational function, and the service reports millions of users across companies, non-profits, education and government. We found no public information on separate channels per legal entity, delegated administration per subsidiary, group-level reporting, white-labelling or ombudsman access — fine for my single 60-employee company, but a group buyer cannot see what they would get. 1 2 4

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where reports about people actually live and under whose law: contracting entity and parent company, hosting location, subprocessors (hosting, phone or voice provider, translation, email), and the data processing agreement. In this category the data is by definition the most sensitive a company holds. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; describe what is proven, and treat what is not stated as unknown rather than non-EU.

0 — Proven non-EU end to end: non-EU entity and non-EU hosting with no EU option, and no data processing agreement offered.

3 — A privacy policy and a data processing agreement exist; hosting location and subprocessors are not stated, or EU hosting is offered only on request or on top tiers.

5 — EU hosting stated as the default, a data processing agreement and a subprocessor list published; a parent company or a subprocessor may sit outside the EU.

8 — EU entity, EU hosting in named data centres, a subprocessor list with no non-EU processor touching report content, and the DPA and TOMs published.

10 — Jurisdictionally clean end to end: European ownership, EU-only hosting and subprocessors for report content and metadata, an on-premises or sovereign-cloud option, and the whole chain documented publicly.

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The SME Operator not rated — no public information

We found no public information on the contracting entity's jurisdiction, hosting location, subprocessors or a data processing agreement on the captured pages. With the most sensitive data a company holds at stake, nothing tells me where reports about my people would live or under whose law they would sit. 1 4 6

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Pricing transparency not rated — the vendor publishes no price

How this is scored

Whether an obligated company can compute the real invoice — per entity, per employee band, per year — from public pages alone: tier prices, billing period, employee bands, add-ons (phone intake, languages, entities) and setup fees.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A public "from" price or one priced tier; the other tiers, employee bands or add-ons are not public.

5 — Public per-tier prices with the billing period (monthly or annual) stated and the main inclusions or employee band of each tier listed.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with employee-band boundaries, entity rules, add-ons (phone intake, languages, extra entities) and setup fees stated, and VAT treatment given; only genuine corporate-group contracts are custom.

10 — Complete price computability: every tier, band, add-on and renewal rule public, so the invoice for a 60-employee company and a 5-entity group is a two-minute exercise.

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The SME Operator not rated — no public information

We found no public prices, tiers, employee bands, billing periods, add-ons or setup fees on the captured pages — not one figure. I cannot judge whether the year-end review would question the invoice, because any price would have to come out of a sales conversation. 1 2 3 4

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 6 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Hosting location Not determined — uncited Report an error
Hosting options Not determined — uncited Report an error
Open source Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data processing agreement Not determined — uncited Report an error
Transfer impact assessment Not determined — uncited Report an error

Questions about Ethical Advocate

Is Ethical Advocate European?

Not determined: the vendor’s pages as captured do not say where Ethical Advocate is based.

Where does Ethical Advocate store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026.

Does Ethical Advocate have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 3 Nov 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Ethical Advocate?

As of 4 Nov 2026, the panel rates preeco | hinweisgeberschutz (3.5/5), Ethicontrol (3/5) and LegalTegrity (3/5) highest among the other 39 Whistleblowing Portals products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is preeco | hinweisgeberschutz (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Ethical Advocate alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Do you know more about Ethical Advocate? Tell us Report an error on this page

Sources (7)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor page ethicaladvocate.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Reporting channels & reporter experience — found from sitemap www.ethicaladvocate.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Reporting channels & reporter experience — found from sitemap www.ethicaladvocate.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Case management & deadline discipline — found from sitemap www.ethicaladvocate.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Case management & deadline discipline — found from sitemap www.ethicaladvocate.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Security & anonymity assurance — found from sitemap www.ethicaladvocate.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Security & anonymity assurance — found from sitemap www.ethicaladvocate.com Checked 3 Nov 2026 Details →