Service level agreement #
EthicsPortal commits to a monthly availability target for the reporter and operator portals. This page states the target, how it is measured, and what is excluded.
Last updated: 2026-05-17.
Availability target #
99.5% monthly uptime for:
- The whistleblower reporting portal — the surface where reporters submit and follow up on cases.
- The operator and handler portal — the surface where designated handlers access and work cases.
99.5% monthly allows approximately 3 hours 36 minutes of unplanned downtime per calendar month.
The marketing site and documentation are best-effort and not covered.
Measurement #
Uptime is measured monthly as the percentage of minutes during which the covered surfaces respond to HTTP requests with a non-error status. Measurement is taken from an external monitoring service, not self-reported.
What counts against availability #
- Outages of EthicsPortal application infrastructure.
- Outages of a subprocessor (hosting, email, object storage) that degrade a covered surface.
- Security incidents requiring a covered surface to be taken offline.
Subprocessor outages are not excluded. The commitment reflects what operators and reporters actually experience.
Exclusions #
Availability is measured excluding:
- Planned maintenance announced at least 48 hours in advance. Scheduled outside European business hours and typically under 30 minutes.
- Force majeure — regional internet disruptions, natural disasters, failures of DNS or certificate authorities outside our vendor chain.
- Unauthorized use or abuse requiring protective measures such as rate limiting or account suspension.
Recovery objectives #
In a disaster-recovery scenario, EthicsPortal targets:
- Recovery point objective (RPO): 24 hours. Data written within the 24 hours preceding a catastrophic failure may be lost.
- Recovery time objective (RTO): 4 hours. The covered surfaces are restored to a working state within four hours of a declared incident.
Backup mechanism, storage location, retention, and restore-testing cadence are documented on the security page .
Downtime disclosure #
Live availability for the covered surfaces is published at secure.ethicsportal.eu/up .
Material outages are recorded in the incident register . Any outage exceeding two hours on a covered surface results in a register entry.
Monthly uptime figures are available to operators on request.
Service credits #
Standard plans do not include monetary service credits. Remedies for material or repeated breaches are stated in the Terms of Service and the Data Processing Agreement . To the maximum extent permitted by law, claims arising out of or relating to this SLA form part of the same aggregate liability cap that applies to the Service.
Questions #
For questions about availability or to request monthly uptime figures, contact support@ethicsportal.eu .
Last updated: