Qualcomm Human Rights Statement
“At Qualcomm, we believe in the power of technology. We know that innovation can catalyze social change and that every breakthrough has the potential to impact society for the better. We also understand that we have a responsibility to uphold and sustain ethical conduct across our value chain. Our commitment to respect and promote human rights is a key aspect of this responsibility, and how we ensure that our inventions help shape a better future for everyone.”
-Steve Mollenkopf, Chief Executive Officer
Our Principles and Approach
We believe human rights are fundamental rights, freedoms, and standards of treatment to which all workers are entitled, including without limitation, women, temporary, migrant, student, contract, and direct employees. We are committed to promoting and respecting all internationally recognized human rights and avoiding complicity in any human rights abuse throughout our Company, our operations, and our business relationships, including our subsidiaries, partners, customers, and supply chain.
Our values and approach to these issues adhere to the articles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the eight Core Labor Standards of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UN Global Compact Principles. We are active members of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA) and the UN Global Compact, which further augment our efforts.
We maintain board-level oversight and engagement with senior executives regarding our corporate responsibility priorities, including our human rights statement, practices, and approach. We report on human rights and other activities to our board of directors regularly. We maintain a cross-functional team, our Human Rights Working Group, with representation from legal; procurement; corporate responsibility; government affairs; environmental, health and safety; diversity and inclusion; supply chain; ethics and compliance; and privacy and security, that is responsible for implementing, improving and continuously supporting our adherence to our human rights practices. This group also actively engages with external stakeholders on our human rights program and strategies.
We regularly conduct formal, third-party human rights impact assessments to determine and prioritize salient human rights risk across Qualcomm's operations and products. We assess manufacturing suppliers and manufacturing sites of subsidiaries to evaluate their conformance to our Supplier Code of Conduct via risk assessments and audits, and work with them to address any non-conformance. Our subsidiaries and manufacturing suppliers, in all of their activities, must operate in compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and rules of the countries in which they operate. We are committed to conducting ongoing human rights due diligence and monitoring.
Communication of our Principles
Our human rights statement is referenced in The Qualcomm Way: Our Code of Business Conduct, which demonstrates our commitment to operating with the highest level of ethical conduct and our dedication to human rights. We provide The Qualcomm Way: Our Code of Business Conduct to all employees worldwide and require that they review, acknowledge, and confirm that they will comply with the policies that are covered.
Qualcomm has also adopted the RBA Code of Conduct in our own operations and as our SupplierCode ofConduct. We require all suppliers to acknowledge and implement the Code of Conduct in their operations.TheRBACode of Conduct is consistent withThe QualcommWay and providesadditional clarity with regard to labor, health, and safety, environmental, ethics, and management systems expectations of our suppliers
Our human rights statement and additional information can be found on our corporate responsibility website. We regularly share this information and engage with stakeholders, including suppliers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), investors, and customers
Our Commitments
At Qualcomm, we derive revenues principally from sales of integrated circuit products and licensing our intellectual property. Our integrated circuits and system software are used in wireless devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, infrastructure equipment, headsets, sound systems and automobiles, and in wired devices, such as broadband gateway equipment, desktop computers, and streaming media players.
To produce our integrated circuit products, we utilize a primarily fabless production model. Therefore, we largely rely on independent third-party suppliers to perform the manufacturing and assembly, and most of the testing of our integrated circuits. Our suppliers are predominantly located in Asia.
In the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector at large, salient human rights risks include forced labor, child labor, working hours, women's rights, health and safety, freedom of association and collective bargaining, and responsible sourcing of minerals. With that knowledge, Qualcomm has developed the below commitments that highlightthe potential human rights issues most directly related to our Company, operations, and supply chain.
Diversity and inclusion
At Qualcomm, we are committed to a work environment of inclusion in which employees see their differences as an asset and a strength. We thrive on the unique and innovative ideas generated by our employees. Their ideas help us to change the world every day. Engagement in discrimination or harassment will not be tolerated: instead we choose to demonstrate respect to each other and collaborate in ways that appreciate our similarities and celebrate our differences. We encourage the exchange of unique ideas and perspectives; we believe that both employees and business results benefit from valuing diverse experience, backgrounds and ideas.
Qualcomm's supplier diversity program policy promotes and encourages strategic partnerships and initiatives that foster and tap into the strengths of diverse suppliers. We are committed to encouraging participation from and providing equal opportunities for small and diverse businesses to compete for contracts that are within their capabilities to perform. Including such suppliers in our supply chain makes us a stronger company. Not only do we benefit from a variety of capabilities and perspectives, we also gain the value of unique, entrepreneurial, customized services that many of these suppliers provide.
Equal opportunity
As part of our commitment to an inclusive and diverse work environment, Qualcomm ensures equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees in all aspects of employment without consideration of race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, age, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, veteran status, disability or any other basis prohibited by law.
Elimination of child labor, forced or compulsory labor and human trafficking
Forced, bonded (including debt bondage) or indentured labor, involuntary prison labor, slavery or trafficking of persons are prohibited, and we are always free to leave our employment. Child labor is not to be used in our operations or in any stage of our product manufacture at our manufacturing suppliers and subsidiaries. Although legitimate workplace apprenticeship or intern programs that comply with all laws and regulations are permitted and supported, we will never knowingly use any suppliers who engage in child, forced or slave labor, nor will we condone such practices.
Right to exercise freedom of association; collective bargaining agreements and trade unions
We respect the rights of employees to form and join trade unions of their own choosing, to bargain collectively and to engage in peaceful assembly in conformance with local law, as well as respect the right of workers to refrain from such activities. We are compliant with all collective agreements regarding significant operational changes as required by country laws and regulations.
Workplace health and safety
Qualcomm’s top priority is a healthy, safe and innovative work environment in which everyone is treated with respect and dignity. Our health and safety management system framework provides clear, consistent and regulatory-compliant policies and protocols for managing health and safety. It describes our standards and specifications for training, safety audits, incident investigation and communications and helps us integrate safety practices in every aspect of our business.
Anti-corruption
Qualcomm is committed to complying with all applicable anti-corruption laws, including the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), other U.S. laws, and the anti-corruption laws and regulations in the countries where we do business. Qualcomm's Global FCPA and AntiCorruption Policy applies to all employees.
Qualcomm is committed to anti-corruption compliance, and our compliance program applies to all persons/entities that provide goods or services to Qualcomm. We implement our compliance requirements through contract provisions, purchase order terms and conditions and having our suppliers acknowledge our supplier code of conduct. Qualcomm takes a risk-based approach to compliance and monitors and performs anti-corruption due diligence as necessary on our third-party partners.
Responsible minerals sourcing
At Qualcomm, we work with our suppliers to ensure that the mining of the minerals that end up in our products do not contribute to human rights violations. Our due diligence measures are designed to conform to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas. Qualcomm has adopted a Conflict Free Minerals Policy, and we expect our suppliers to obtain materials through environmentally and socially responsible sources, including conflict free sources within the DRC and adjoining countries. We also supports efforts such as the Responsible Minerals Initiative and iTSCi, the ITRI Supply Chain Initiative through membership, active participation, and financial contributions. Additional information about our program, including our annual Conflict Minerals Report, can be found at: Qualcomm conflict free minerals.
Privacy, security, product responsibility and freedom of expression
In our Company, in our products, and the mobile industry, we're working to enhance the 5 security of how we process and store data of all kinds, including personal data. We strive to foster trust in the use of wireless technologies by helping to enable responsible information privacy and data security practices. So that our customers can use our technologies with confidence, we incorporate privacy and security considerations into our products in the earliest stages of design. Through our global privacy and security programs, our employees routinely identify, evaluate, and mitigate potential privacy or data security issues in our products and businesses. Our Privacy Guiding Principles are integrated into our business processes, and our Privacy Public Policy Positions describe our stance on privacy issues affecting the greater wireless ecosystem.
Qualcomm believes information and communication technology is a powerful enabler of freedom of expression around the world. We also believe in robust and secure communications to ensure consumer trust and quality of experience.
We strive to reduce the potential for manipulation and misuse of our information technology systems to cause adverse human rights impacts and do not support our technology being used in this way. As such, we seek to detect and investigate security incidents and to prevent their recurrence. We continue to devote significant resources to the security of our information technology systems and commit to preventative and corrective actions and pursuing a suitable resolution in cases where we have identified that we, or organizations associated with Qualcomm have caused or contributed to adverse human rights impacts.
With respect to government surveillance, we understand and value the need to protect citizens, but that should also include protecting citizens' interest in privacy. To that end, there should be reasonable checks and balances on any governments' ability to collect user data. These reasonable limitations will work best when they balance security needs with user privacy and maximize the public's overall trust in the way the technology works. This will also provide certainty for existing and future businesses to invest and innovate.
Grievance and Remedy
We are committed to providing remedies for individuals or communities where we have identified that Qualcomm, or third-parties acting on our behalf, have caused or contributed to adverse human rights impacts. As such, we have a formal, third-party operated grievance and remedy mechanism, our Business Conduct Hotline. The hotline is a complrehensive and confidential reporting tool available for anyone, external or internal, to raise concerns, ask questions or seek guidance anonymously, to the extent permitted by local law. All stakeholders can raise concerns via either toll-free hotline or the Internet, and all reports are responded to in one to two business days. Qualcomm will not tolerate retaliation against anyone for raising concerns in good faith regarding an actual or suspected violation of our Code, Company policy, or the law.
For more information on Qualcomm's human rights statement, please contact humanrights@qualcomm.com.
