While these soft interventions may lack the legal force of AUPs and service terms, stakeholders have emphasized the importance of training, guidance, and best-practice sharing in changing behavior and addressing human rights risks. While these soft interventions may lack the legal force of AUPs and service terms, stake- holders have emphasized the importance of training, guidance, and best-practice sharing in changing behavior and addressing human rights risks. Internally, SaaS companies can encourage the socialization and discussion of human rights issues by creating programs such as ethical debate clubs, human rights and ethics champs, or human rights office hours.31 Consider Publishing a List of Public Sector Customers Consider publishing a list of public sector customers. Many of the salient human rights impacts arising from the use of SaaS services occur during their application by public sector customers who have their own duty to protect human rights. SaaS providers should review the pros and cons of publishing a list of public sector customers. Such a list would be intended to provide external stakeholders with the information they need to hold govern- ment actors accountable for adverse human rights impacts that may arise from the use of SaaS products and services. Reporting Channel Reporting channels and grievance mechanisms provide a medium through which employees, customers, users, and other rightsholders can raise concerns related to the misuse or abuse of a company’s platform, products or services, and related grievances. Reporting channels can also provide visibility into product use cases and act as an early warning mechanism for issues that may become more significant over time. Instituting these mechanisms helps accomplish two goals: i. Provide a channel for anyone to surface instances of product or service misuse and abuse ii. Cr eate an operational grievance mechanism where an aggrieved party can seek remedy for a harm In practice, a single channel or mechanism may serve both purposes; however, it is important to note that there are two distinct uses. 41 Human Rights Assessment of the Software-as-a-Service Sector
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