This study clarifies the realities of the Whistleblower Protection Act and examines a future image of the Act. Recently, a series of cases in which corporate misdeeds, which were injurious to consumer safety, such as the false labeling of food products, greatly undermined public trust, especially consumer trust. Many of these corporate misdeeds were brought to light through information provided by concerned parties within corporations. Based on these circumstances, the Whistleblower Protection Act came into force (in April, 2006) in order to protect whistleblowers, to ensure that workers will not suffer disadvantages, such as dismissal, for disclosing information in public interest, and in order to ensure that business enterprises comply with laws and regulations that concern the protection of human life and health as well as consumer interests. In addition, guidelines of procedures to be followed by administrative institutions when they receive reports of legal violation by companies from their employees or from outsiders have been established, as have guidelines for commercial business enterprises (both in July, 2005). The following are the major points of the Whistleblower Protection Act: (i) workers are protected from disadvantages, such as dismissal, for disclosing information in the interest of the public; (ii) information accepted from whistleblowers covers criminal and illegal acts in violation of the provisions of the laws that have a bearing on people's lives, bodies, and property; (iii) institutions to which information is reported are classified into "in-house bodies of corporations," "administrative institutions," and "other institutions outside corporations". Conditions for the protection of whistleblowers are set by each institution to which information is reported. Based on above, in this report, the range and the directionality of the expansion of the Whistleblower Protection Act were pointed out.
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