Two deadlines, no end date
The law sets two fixed deadlines for handling a report. Within seven days of receipt, you send a confirmation to the reporter. Within three months after that, you provide information about the assessment of the report and, if applicable, the planned or taken follow-up action. These are the two moments when the reporter hears from you.
What the law does not specify is when a case is substantively concluded. The three-month deadline requires you to inform the reporter, not to complete the investigation. An ongoing factual investigation, external advice, or a meeting that still needs to take place can easily take longer than three months. The deadline concerns communication with the reporter, not the duration of the entire process.
When does the clock start ticking
The three-month deadline begins after sending the receipt confirmation, or after the seven days have elapsed if that confirmation was not sent. This means that a slow start immediately affects the rest of the process: the later the confirmation, the sooner the second deadline is at risk. Anyone who lets the seven days pass without action unintentionally shortens the remaining time for the investigation itself.
In practice, this is one of the most common mistakes. A report arrives when the handler is on holiday, or the report sits for a while because it is unclear who should pick it up. Seven days may seem ample, but in practice it is short if no one has been designated in advance as the first point of contact.
Where the timeline breaks down in practice
Three situations occur more frequently than others. The first is an investigation that takes more time than expected, for example because multiple parties need to be interviewed or external advice is required. The law provides no postponement option for the feedback itself; you inform the reporter within three months about the status, even if the investigation is not yet complete.
The second situation is a channel without a clear owner. If a report arrives at a mailbox or a general email address, time can be lost before someone actually picks up the report and starts the timelines running. A designated handler and a system that automatically tracks the deadlines prevent a report from going unnoticed.
The third situation is the absence of a recorded receipt time. Without a clear start date, it is difficult to determine afterwards whether the deadlines were met, and this is relevant both for the reporter and for the organisation itself. This is also why a registered reporting page with a case code helps: the moment of reporting is recorded, and the reporter can track progress themselves without needing to ask additional questions.
What you can arrange in advance
Because the deadlines automatically start running as soon as a report is received, it helps to know in advance who will pick up the report, when the initial assessment will take place, and who will inform the reporter. This should be established in the reporting procedure, not later when a report has already been received.
Anyone who still needs to determine whether these obligations apply to their own organisation will find that in a brief check that indicates where you stand. For those who still need to develop or refine the procedure, there is a detailed overview in the knowledge base with the obligations and the associated deadlines.
In practice, it is more convenient if the deadlines are not tracked manually in a calendar, but run automatically as soon as a report is received. On signalo.eu, this happens from the moment of reporting, and you can see in how the platform works how this is set up. Practical questions about handling reports, such as what happens if a deadline is at risk of passing, are collected in frequently asked questions about handling reports.
This explanation is general in nature and describes the statutory deadlines that apply to the reporting channel; for the assessment of a specific report or situation, legal advice is recommended. Would you first like to see whether your organization is subject to the reporting obligation and what must concretely be in place? Take the free check or browse through the topics in the knowledge base.