The Complaints Box allows anonymity and guarantees the confidentiality and security of communications.
The Mailbox guarantees the confidentiality of communications and the identity of the informant at all times. People can provide their identification and contact details or, if they prefer, they can also communicate anonymously.
There are two options to communicate anonymously:
- Using your browser but without providing identification and contact information. In this case, there is a trace of the IP address from which the communication is made, which may be requested from the Agency by the competent authorities.
- Fully guaranteeing the anonymity of communication in the digital environment (also of the IP address, which can identify the person browsing the Internet), using an anonymization network. The most widely used tool is the TOR network. The easiest way to use this network is to download and install the Tor Browser browser, which can be obtained from the page https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html.es.
The analysis of the tools used by other entities dedicated to citizen reporting and experts on these issues, advise facilitating this option of anonymity to preserve the integrity of the reporter, who can often be in a vulnerable situation.
The TOR network is basically free and open source software that allows you to improve privacy and security on the Internet. When connecting to the Internet with TOR, the connection passes through a series of encrypted tunnels before being routed to its destination, making it difficult to trace the source of the information. Thus, the identity of the person who connects to the Complaints Box is protected.
The use of the TOR network to access the mailbox is advisable or essential when you are convinced or certain of risk, because it guarantees the anonymity of the person at the time of receipt of the communication. However, it must be remembered that whoever reports must also preserve anonymity at the time of issuance.
In many public administrations and corporate networks in general, the administrators of these networks prevent access to the TOR download page or filter the traffic directed to it. Therefore, to use this software it may be necessary to do so from a personal computer.