The RTBF, La Libre Belgique, Le Soir and the French daily newspaper Le Monde have launched a secure platform for “informers”, they announced on Thursday. They did a presentation in Paris, then another in Brussels. The internet site, called “sourcesûre”, has been conceived to guarantee sources remain anonymous and untraceable. “But it’s more than that: it’s a fundamental tool – in a period where fundamental freedoms are under surveillance – to allow our communities to know their assets and vices”, says Jean-Pierre Jacqmin, director of information for the RTBF. Inspired by Publeaks, a similar platform used by 54 Dutch media outlets, the site www.sourcesure.eu allows citizens to communicate information to the media without revealing their identity. They can select one or several media, and choose whether or not to be contacted by journalists with a secret code. On the technical side, it works with open-source software GlobaLeaks, the Tor navigator (which the informant can download for free) and the Tails operating system. No door broken open can take you back to the source, say the designers, but they admit that tracing connections is never impossible.
Presented by Patrick Remacle and Yves Eudes, journalists for the RTBF and Le Monde respectively, “sourcesûre” aims to appeal to all French language media that want to “perform through journalistic inquiries based on information they’ve received, while respecting the profession’s code of conduct”. This is the commitment laid out on the site.
On Thursday morning, France Télévisions joined the first partners.
(Source: Belga)
