An alarming number of workers are choosing to report anonymously likely out of fear of retaliation within their organization.
Against a backdrop of job insecurity, general instability and fear of retaliation, increased anonymous reporting will continue, Gregory Keating of Littler predicts. That is unless corporate leaders and compliance professionals make meaningful strides in their programs.
A trend has emerged that should cause tremors throughout the compliance community. Recent benchmarking and survey data indicate that anonymous reporting on whistleblower hotlines has increased or remained elevated in recent years, reversing an earlier trend toward named reporting.
NAVEX Global, which canvassed more than 2 million reports across over 4,000 organizations, reported in its 2025 benchmark report that about 52% of reports in the US were made anonymously. In a 2026 report, Ethico found a 5% drop in the number of self-identified reporters from the previous year, the largest single-year reversal in its dataset.
Seasoned compliance professionals should recognize that this is a dangerous development. While the availability of anonymous reporting is a widespread and even required feature of reporting policies and procedures, a trend toward an increased incidence of anonymous rather than named reporting introduces challenges to an organization’s efforts to identify and remedy misconduct. Complaints by anonymous reporters are significantly more challenging to investigate and often...
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed two civil lawsuits alleging a Minneapolis bakery, a now-defunct nonprofit and others submitted false claims worth millions of dollars to the Minne...