• Security

Vigilance Procedures

  • Written By: Elite Strategy Global

Identify Risks and Best Practices

Critical measures are required to thwart specific physical threats and to minimize vulnerability and risks. Technology whistleblowers should be prepared to work closely with trusted companions and/or law enforcement personnel as identified in this guide. 

Whistleblowers that have become well-known and are publicly identified due to their whistleblowing actions should, where possible, be cognizant of public-access events where large crowds of unknown persons are attending. Should this be unavoidable, whistleblower employees should have their own emergency preparedness plan in place.

Individual Employee Emergency Preparedness Plan

Whistleblower employees should have an awareness of the expected crowd and threat and access to local police or security services. Where possible, employees should appear in areas where there is a visible security presence, access controls, and screening procedures. Should employees find themselves in situations where avoidance is not an option, they should have a sense of heightened awareness and vigilance. The following are vigilance and preparedness tips for employees. Please note that this list is not all-inclusive. It is intended to provide whistleblower employees with awareness techniques:

All whistleblowers should have:

  • Awareness of your surroundings.
  • Awareness of access procedures to enter an event and who might be avoiding those procedures.
  • Awareness of ingress and egress of persons and/or vehicles. 
  • Take note of how you came in and how best to evacuate should the need arise.
  • If an emergency happens, have a personal plan on how to evacuate the event.
  • Awareness of location of nearby law enforcement or security at events. 
  • Awareness of the identification process (wristbands, badges, etc.).
  • Take note of who is wearing what and their levels of access in the event and their levels of access to you. 
  • Whistleblower employees should have a personal communication plan in case of emergencies.
  • Awareness of camera and/or monitoring equipment

These items could make you and other guests feel safer. They could be used to gain valuable evidence should an incident occur, and they may also thwart potential agitators from causing trouble.

Know before you go:

  • Whistleblowers should consider the following and have a plan should these things occur:
  • How to alert others about an apparent emergency;
  • To whom concerns of suspicious items, activities, or persons should be reported;
  • How to respond to something or someone who looks suspicious; and
  • How to respond to a suspicious item
    • Do not touch the item — notify security immediately and move away from the item or device.
    • NOTE: If you see what appears to be a gun, yell “GUN!” Security will react.

Statement of transparency

This entire project is worthless if the tech workers who come to it cannot trust where the information is from, who is behind its creation, and who manages the site. For that reason, I have identified every organization and individual who has been instrumental in its development.

The time and resources required to put together the Handbook were funded by Omidyar Network. This is a wholly independent project owned and managed by me. No identifying data will ever be collected or shared about who accesses this site — with anyone. That said, I do NOT advise accessing this from a company device. Your employer can, and will likely, track visits to a resource like this Handbook. 

You can find a list of the data WordPress automatically collects about site visits here.

 

— Ifeoma Ozoma, Founder of Earthseed, Creator of the Tech Worker Handbook