The terms leak or leaked information describe a situation when someone who works for a public institution or a business company shares internal and restricted information with a journalist or other media worker without having authorization to do so. There are many possible reasons for leaking confidential information, including the public’s right to get informed and to reveal actions that are against the public interest, like corruption or other wrongdoings. Other motivations could be to warn about upcoming events, but also to discredit a person or a group of people.
A person who leaks information is called ‘whistle-blower’. The whistle-blower’s activity is often illegal or considered unethical. Whistle-blowers often want to stay anonymous, because they can easily find themselves in danger. One widely known whistle-blower is Edward Snowden, who worked for the CIA and in 2013 leaked classified information from the United States National Security Agency.
Disclosure sites can have an important role when someone wants to share thousands or millions of pieces of information. Such sites provide the technical background and ensure anonymity to the whistle-blowers. In this case, the source does not have to contact a journalist directly and can disguise their identity even from the owner of the site. One well-known example is WikiLeaks, an international non-profit organisation and disclosure site that publishes news leaks and classified data sent to them from anonymous sources. It was initiated by Julian Assange in 2006 and shared ten million documents in ten years.
