Psst.org: Building a Digital Safe for Tech Whistleblowers

In an era dominated by powerful corporations and complex technological landscapes, the act of speaking truth to power has become increasingly fraught with peril. Whistleblowers, individuals who expose wrongdoing within organizations, often face severe retaliation, including job loss, legal battles, financial ruin, and social ostracization. Yet, their courage is frequently the catalyst for essential societal change, bringing to light issues ranging from corporate fraud and environmental damage to ethical breaches in technology development and government misconduct.

Understanding the immense personal cost and the critical public benefit of whistleblowing, Amber Scorah, a writer with a history of challenging powerful entities through her own narratives, co-founded Psst.org. This nonprofit organization is specifically designed to empower individuals in the tech industry and government to share information of public interest with enhanced protection, offering a beacon of hope and a practical mechanism for collective action.

The Genesis of Psst: Learning from Powerful Playbooks

Amber Scorah's journey to co-founding Psst is rooted in her personal experiences with the power of storytelling and the backlash it can provoke. In 2015, the tragic death of her infant son on his first day of day care spurred her to write a powerful op-ed highlighting the inadequate parental leave policies in the US. Her story resonated deeply and contributed to policy changes, demonstrating the tangible impact individual narratives can have.

Later, her memoir detailing her departure from the Jehovah's Witnesses exposed internal issues within the secretive religious organization. This act, while liberating for Scorah and others who felt similarly, came at a significant personal cost, including the loss of relationships with friends and family. These experiences taught her valuable lessons about the tactics employed by powerful groups to silence dissent and discredit messengers.

While working at a media outlet that facilitated connections between whistleblowers and journalists, Scorah observed a recurring pattern in how organizations attempted to suppress information. She recognized a common "playbook" — a set of strategies used to undermine those who dared to expose uncomfortable truths. This playbook often involves discrediting the individual, isolating them from their community, and leveraging legal or financial power to silence them.

It became clear to Scorah that traditional whistleblowing mechanisms, while vital, often left individuals exposed and vulnerable. The need for a new approach, one that could counteract these powerful tactics and offer greater safety, was evident. This realization was the driving force behind the creation of Psst.

Introducing Psst.org: A New Model for Secure Reporting

Launched in September 2024, Psst.org aims to address the inherent risks of whistleblowing by providing a secure and strategic platform for sharing sensitive information. The organization focuses on individuals within the tech industry and government, sectors where rapid innovation and complex structures can sometimes obscure unethical practices or pose significant risks to the public interest.

Psst's core offering is a "digital safe" accessible through an anonymous, end-to-end encrypted text box on their website, Psst.org. Users can type a description of their concerns directly into this secure interface. A deliberate design choice is that the platform currently accepts only text entries, not document uploads. This limitation is a security measure, making it significantly harder for organizations attempting to trace leaks to identify the source based on document metadata or unique file characteristics.

The digital safe serves as the initial point of contact, allowing potential whistleblowers to articulate their concerns without immediately revealing their identity or risking the exposure of potentially identifying documents. This low-barrier entry is crucial for encouraging individuals who might otherwise be too fearful to come forward.

The Power of Collective Action: Information Escrow

What truly distinguishes Psst.org is its innovative "information escrow" system. This mechanism allows users to submit their information with the option to keep it private within the digital safe until another individual shares similar concerns about the same company or organization. This feature is central to Psst's strategy of building "safety in numbers."

The principle is simple yet powerful: a single whistleblower can be easily dismissed, attacked, or isolated. However, when multiple individuals from the same organization report similar issues independently, their collective accounts gain significant credibility and resilience. It becomes much harder for the company to portray the issue as merely the grievance of a single "disgruntled employee."

The information escrow system facilitates this collective strength. When a user submits information, they can tag it with relevant details like the company name and the category of concern (e.g., "AI ethics," "data privacy," "fraud," "labor practices"). Psst's legal team initially reviews these entries manually, looking for potential matches based on these tags, *without* decrypting or reading the content itself at this stage.

If potential matches are found, and the contributors consent, the legal team can then decrypt and read the entries to determine if they relate to the same underlying issue. Crucially, the identities of the different contributors remain protected from one another throughout this process. This layered approach ensures that individuals are not exposed until a critical mass of information or corroboration is potentially available.

The benefits of this collective approach are multifaceted:

• **Enhanced Protection:** By pooling information, it becomes significantly more difficult for organizations to pinpoint the source of a leak, especially if multiple individuals are reporting aspects of the same problem.
• **Increased Credibility:** Multiple independent accounts of similar misconduct lend greater weight and credibility to the allegations, making them harder for the target organization to deny or dismiss.
• **Reduced Isolation:** Knowing that others share similar concerns can alleviate the profound sense of isolation often experienced by whistleblowers.
• **Encouraging Partial Reports:** Individuals who only have a piece of the puzzle might be hesitant to come forward alone. The information escrow encourages them to share what they know, as their partial report could combine with others to form a more complete picture.
• **Strategic Release of Information:** Psst can work with the group of whistleblowers to strategically release the information, whether through investigative journalists, regulatory bodies, or public reports, maximizing impact while minimizing individual risk.

The information escrow system is a direct countermeasure to the "discredit and isolate" tactics often used against whistleblowers. By fostering a collective voice, Psst helps individuals stand together, even if anonymously, against powerful forces.

Leveraging Legal Privilege for Confidentiality

Another cornerstone of Psst's protection strategy is its structure around legal privilege. In many countries, including the US and UK, communications between lawyers and their clients are protected by legal privilege, meaning they are confidential and generally cannot be compelled for disclosure in legal proceedings.

Jennifer Gibson, who leads Psst's in-house legal team and is a co-founder, highlights that this is a tactic often used by large corporations themselves. "They're designed to put lawyers in the room so the information isn't disclosable," she notes. "To some extent, we're using their playbook."

By having potential whistleblowers submit their concerns through Psst's legal team, the information can potentially benefit from this legal protection. This adds an extra layer of security beyond technical encryption, making it harder for external parties, including the whistleblower's employer, to legally access the shared information.

The legal team's role is not just about protection; they also help assess the information, understand its potential public interest value, and advise on the best course of action. This could involve connecting whistleblowers with investigative journalists, assisting in filing complaints with regulatory bodies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), or publishing accounts directly on Psst's platform.

Real-World Impact: The Microsoft Example

Even before its official launch, Psst demonstrated its potential impact by assisting a group of Microsoft employees. These employees were concerned about Microsoft's marketing of its AI products to fossil-fuel companies, an issue they felt contradicted the company's stated environmental commitments or raised ethical questions about the application of advanced technology.

Initially, only one employee was willing to speak publicly. However, others provided supporting documents anonymously through channels that Psst helped facilitate. With the support and guidance of Psst's team, including legal expertise, the group was able to take action. They filed a complaint with the SEC, leveraging the power of regulatory channels to raise their concerns officially.

Furthermore, their collective concerns and supporting information were shared in a story published by The Atlantic. This public exposure brought the issue to a wider audience, putting pressure on Microsoft and highlighting the ethical dilemmas faced by employees working on cutting-edge technologies within large corporations.

This case study exemplifies Psst's model in action: combining anonymous contributions, leveraging legal expertise, and strategically engaging with media and regulators to amplify the voices of concerned employees while providing them with layers of protection.

Navigating the Regulatory Lag and Future Ambitions

One significant challenge Psst faces, as highlighted by Jennifer Gibson, is the pace of regulation compared to technological advancement, particularly in areas like AI. Often, by the time regulations are considered or implemented, technology has already evolved, creating a "no-man's-land" where practices might not be illegal but are clearly not in the public interest or raise serious ethical flags.

Psst aims to operate within this gap, providing a channel for reporting issues that might fall outside strict legal definitions of wrongdoing but are nonetheless crucial for public awareness and corporate accountability. The platform encourages reporting on a wide range of concerns, from ethical lapses and safety issues to potential fraud and misleading public statements.

Looking ahead, Psst plans to enhance its capabilities through automation. The manual review process for matching submissions, while secure, can be time-consuming. The organization intends to develop an algorithm that can decrypt and compare information looking for potential matches. Crucially, this algorithm would run in a secure enclave — a protected area built into the hardware of a computer — ensuring that the sensitive information remains shielded from human eyes even during the automated matching process. This technological advancement aims to make the system more efficient while maintaining the highest levels of confidentiality and security for contributors.

The Sanitizing Effect of Sunlight

Amber Scorah draws a parallel between her past experiences and the mission of Psst. Whether dealing with a secretive religious organization or a powerful tech company, the pattern of suppressing uncomfortable truths is similar. She firmly believes in the power of transparency. "Sunlight has a sanitizing effect," she states.

By providing a safe and structured way for insiders to share information, Psst aims to shine a light on practices that might otherwise remain hidden. This transparency is not just about exposing wrongdoing; it's also about fostering a more ethical and accountable environment within the tech industry and government.

The tech sector, in particular, has grown to wield immense influence over global economies, societies, and even political processes. Decisions made within these companies regarding AI development, data usage, content moderation, and market power have far-reaching consequences. Ensuring that there are effective mechanisms for internal concerns to be raised and heard, without fear of reprisal, is vital for democratic accountability and public well-being.

Conclusion: Empowering the Ethical Conscience

Psst.org represents a crucial evolution in the landscape of whistleblowing support. Recognizing the limitations and dangers of traditional methods, it offers a novel approach centered on security, anonymity, legal protection, and the strategic power of collective action. By building a digital safe and implementing an information escrow system, Psst provides a much-needed platform for individuals who witness misconduct within powerful tech and government institutions but are understandably hesitant to come forward alone.

Amber Scorah's personal history of challenging powerful narratives informs Psst's deep understanding of the risks involved and the tactics used by those seeking to suppress information. The organization's commitment to leveraging legal privilege and facilitating connections with journalists and regulators ensures that the information shared has the best chance of leading to meaningful change, while the contributors receive maximum possible protection.

In a world where technology's influence continues to grow, the need for transparency and accountability is paramount. Psst.org empowers the ethical conscience of employees, providing them with the tools and support necessary to bring important issues into the light, ultimately contributing to a more responsible and ethical future for the tech industry and beyond. The safety in numbers approach is not just a slogan; it's a strategic imperative for effective and protected whistleblowing in the digital age.