Plausible Deniability Guarantees for Whistleblowers
Hiding which employees get audited so bosses can't identify whistleblowers
Whistleblowers face retaliation when organizations discover who reported them, yet current protection systems lack rigorous privacy guarantees. Researchers developed a mathematically proven method that hides which employees are selected for audits well enough that an organization watching the selection process cannot identify reporters—and it performs dramatically better than simply choosing auditors at random.
Whistleblowers expose fraud, safety violations, and corruption, but fear of being identified and punished silences most potential reporters. A system with formal privacy guarantees could encourage more people to come forward without fearing retaliation, making oversight mechanisms actually work in practice rather than existing mainly on paper.