The contemporary world provides all industries with cutting-edge mobile communication platforms to enable better collaboration and workforce efficiency – with WhatsApp being on the forefront.
But while beneficial, this messaging platform also presents challenges for compliance professionals that are tasked to capture and record WhatsApp, text messages, and other mobile content not only for the purpose of meeting regulatory standards but also to satisfy the requirements of various federal agencies, such that of the Department of Justice’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
What is FCPA?
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a federal law that makes it unlawful for certain classes of persons and entities to make payments to foreign government officials to assist in obtaining or retaining business.
In November 2017, the DOJ announced a Corporate Enforcement policy that encouraged companies to self-report FCPA violations, and also include a requirement which mandates that companies prohibit employees from using ephemeral messaging systems like WhatsApp.
But in March 2019, the DOH issued a revised FCPA policy issue which is a complete 180-degree turn from the original version.
With the amended policy in place, companies are no longer asked to ban WhatsApp but rather have sufficient control systems in place that will ensure that the app is being used in accordance with the company policies for archiving business-related communications.
What Does the Revised FCPA Mean to Government Investigations in Companies?
The amended FCPA policy is an indication of how ephemeral messaging apps like WhatsApp is driving the federal government to update its current recordkeeping standards.
Knowing that countless U.S. businesses and foreign corporation use all the available communication channels to keep their workforce and clients engaged, issuing this revised policy only makes sense for two reasons:
- It provides the companies more flexibility to invest in a system that fits their communication needs, and that will best give them the chance to receive full remediation credit for compliance.
- It further enhances the DOJ’s goal, that is to deter employees from using any communication channels to orchestrate a foreign bribery scheme – all by mandating firms to archive WhatsApp chats in the event it is where the bribery scheme took place.
In many ways, the revised FCPA is like a double-edged sword that generates onerous pressure for compliance professionals, but also empowers them with greater capability to choose the technology and devise the controls and policies that best suit their business.
For instance, a company seeking to preserve WhatsApp chats may not only adopt a written communication policy that lists all prohibited subjects that can be communicated through the app, but also the fines and penalties for non-compliance.
They may also be able to choose a compliance vendor that can allow them to select the right mix of mobile archiving solutions that cater to their enterprise communication ecosystem and the challenges they face with each channel they use.
In that matter, investing in mobile archiving solutions and devising written policies and controls for FCPA compliance is not just about optimizing the use of WhatsApp in business and improving the detection of bribery and self-dealing, embezzlement, nepotism, and other non-compliant behaviors.
It’s also about providing the business with better chances of adequately addressing an investigation process that could significantly disrupt their operations, as well as with the higher probability of obtaining full remediation credit in case of the rare event that their organization becomes a subject for an FCPA enforcement action.
Fortunately, companies won’t have to struggle regarding compliance, thanks to TeleMessage.
TeleMessage’s WhatsApp Archiver is a unique platform engineered to solve compliance and regulation issues by allowing companies to capture and archive WhatsApp messages. TeleMessage has a list of supported regulations from various geographies that assures no compliance issues will occur when using the WhatsApp Archiver.
This platform works exactly like the standard WhatsApp application, ensuring that your employees will still be able to send work-related communications easily and quickly.
The benefits of using WhatsApp Archiver in your business include:
- Archive all WhatsApp communications
- Use WhatsApp to communicate with customers, employees, and stakeholders
- Search, track and retrieve WhatsApp messages in the corporate archive
- Deposit WhatsApp messages with any email archiving vendor
- Full administration and reporting
The TeleMessage WhatsApp Archiver is the latest addition to our mobile archiving solution that securely captures content from mobile carriers and mobile devices for a variety of ownership models (BYOD, CYOD, and employer-issued). With our multiple archiving methods, you can always find the right tools or blend for your requirements:
TeleMessage offers cross-carrier and international mobile text & calls archiving for corporate and BYOD phones. Visit our website today at www.telemessage.com to learn more about our mobile archiving products.
