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Ideas and resources to strengthen your ethical culture.
Articles and guides on ethics hotlines, compliance and risk management. Choose a post to read more.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Everything you need to know about ethics hotlines.
1. What is an ethics hotline?
It’s a confidential channel where employees, suppliers and others connected to an organization can report misconduct (fraud, harassment, corruption, safety risks) without fear of retaliation, so the company can investigate and act in time.
2. What is Ethic Lines?
An ethics hotline run by an independent third party. It combines technology with a team of professionals who receive, classify and deliver every report so your company can investigate and decide. We’ve been implementing ethics hotlines in Mexico and Latin America for more than 16 years.
3. What kinds of organizations can use Ethic Lines?
Companies and institutions of any size and industry (manufacturing, construction, healthcare, education, hospitality, services and more) that want to listen to their people and stay compliant.
4. What’s the difference between having an internal channel and hiring a third party like Ethic Lines?
An independent third party removes conflicts of interest and the fear of retaliation: whistleblowers know their report won’t go through their boss or an internal department first. Plus, you don’t have to build or run the channel yourself. It works from day one and is documented from the very first report.
5. How is the whistleblower’s confidentiality guaranteed?
Whistleblowers can report anonymously or confidentially. Information is safeguarded with security protocols, and access is limited to the people designated to handle each case.
6. Is the hotline truly independent from the company that hires it?
Yes. Ethic Lines receives and classifies every report as an external third party and delivers it exactly as submitted, so the organization can investigate and make its own decisions.
7. What happens if the report is about an executive or someone with access to the system?
The case is reassigned to someone else, so conflicts of interest are avoided by design.
8. Why is it important to have a mechanism like this?
Because tips are the most common way fraud is detected (43% of cases, ACFE 2024), and organizations with a reporting channel see up to 50% lower losses. Listening early keeps a problem from turning into a crisis.
9. Does Ethic Lines help with regulatory compliance?
Yes. It helps you meet the NOM-035 requirement to have safe, confidential mechanisms for receiving reports, and it leaves documented evidence that the mechanism exists and is working.
10. What kinds of situations can be reported?
Fraud, corruption, harassment, discrimination, conflicts of interest, and more — the list is tailored to your organization’s needs.
11. What channels can be used to report?
Phone line, voicemail, email and web platform, from any device and with no app to install.
12. What happens after a report is received?
Our team of specialists receives it, classifies it and delivers it to you with a case number and date, structured the way you need it to investigate. The case is tracked until it’s closed.
13. How long does it take to implement the service?
We implement as soon as we have the information we need from your organization — usually within a few weeks.
14. How much does it cost to implement an ethics hotline?
It’s based on your number of employees. We’ll go over the details on the call.
RISK. CONTROL. TRUST. COMPLIANCE.
Listening early changes everything.
Every report that doesn’t arrive in time is a risk that was already there. Ethic Lines gives you the channel to see it before it becomes a crisis.