ZACC will next week officially launch its Whistle Blower App, The Sunday Mail reports. According to ZACC’s Commissioner John Makamure who wrote the article in which he said there is a 100% increase in cases reported by the public to ZACC in 2020 in contrast to those reported in 2019.
Makamure also said the number of cases reported which may be reported by an insider privy to the developments, a supplier and or a customer might soar as the public gains confidence in the work of the commission.
In explaining how the app works and how they will protect the identity of the whistleblower as an organisation Makamure said:
The whistle-blowing app will be available on www.zacc.online/tip-off or through links that will be communicated via the ZACC communication platforms. The application is designed to engage with the user through an artificial intelligence operation that asks the user questions in a manner that is as easy as texting.
The idea of making it basic and user-friendly is based on the need to quickly attend to an issue and get the information that is useful in the shortest possible time.
In order to ensure maximum protection of the identity of the whistle-blower, infrastructure that powers the application is designed to blind all incoming records to ensure that no one will ever have access to the location, device type or any cookie that may be harvested online.
This process is done by sending all the traffic through one server that will encrypt the sent messages and mask all the incoming reports with one IP address.
That is to say if a person in Kadoma and another in Johannesburg makes a report through the app, as far as the setup has been configured, that report is coming from one location, device and address.
Some will ask why the platform is not available on applications that people use on a daily basis such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etcetera.
After considering all these platforms during the development of the application, we figured out that the greatest need was privacy of the whistle-blower.
We thus deliberately excluded platforms that come with a username or mobile service number as a form of identification.
ZACC has said they have recovered assets acquired through corruption that amounts to over $100 million while the public has branded ZACC a toothless bulldog because it has very few convictions despite making high profile arrests.
More: The Sunday Mail