We’ve been busy signing up new organisations to the pledge, updating our FAQ to cover some key discussions over the last few months, and talking to as many people as possible to understand more about the current challenges we face. Our first ever industry workshop was held at Infosecurity Europe last month. We heard some really good feedback, some views on the remaining challenges and some great ideas on how we can take the strategy forward.

Some of the positive feedback we’ve heard was from organisations who are actively talking to their employees about harassment within the industry; something that they weren’t doing before they took the pledge.

We are proud to be able to tell you that over one hundred organisations have now signed up to that pledge!

We also heard from some people who have been wanting to see more of us, wanting us to be more vocal and wanting us to get involved in more individual issues. As we have always said, we operate within very carefully considered and legitimate constraints with respect to passing judgement on specific accusations. Whilst those constraints may not change, we can do more, and we will do more. In fact, we are taking some immediate actions to move forward:

Key Action 1 – Bring more people into the team.

We need to ensure we live up to the legitimate expectations you have of us, and to make sure we help influence the changes we all want. As a small team of volunteers, we recognise that we need more support around us, so we are actively seeking new volunteers who can spare a little time to support some of our activities. We are looking for those who could support with administrative tasks such as social media and content creation as well as those who feel they can help with at a strategic or operational level – particularly in the areas of Human Resource and Legal expertise. We are very keen to encourage those from outside of the industry to help us – those who can help bring a wider perspective. If you know of anybody willing to help, please get in touch via email.

Key Action 2 – Increase governance of affiliated organisations.

We recognise that in order for us to operate within the principles we have outlined, we are reliant on those organisations who have signed the pledge to deal with any issues appropriately. We believe it is reasonable for us to more effectively enforce the public commitment that these organisations have made. This will involve ongoing consultation and potential changes to the engagement process. This is expected to lead to an increase in the effectiveness of any investigation procedures, transparency to other organisations, and indeed any individuals within the industry who may wish to contact them.

We are looking forward to addressing Key Action 1, which will allow us to start providing more frequent updates and engaging more with affiliate organisations over the next few weeks.

If you know somebody who wants to help make a difference, then please have them contact us on enquiries@respectinsecurity.org or via our website contact form.

Thanks for your continued support.