Altice

Altice partners with Emmaüs Connect, which has opened 15 digital solidarity spaces throughout France to benefit socially and digitally underserved populations. Through this partnership, Altice provided access to digital technology to 14,437 people in 2021. The company also contributed to reducing the gender digital divide through its partnership with Rêv’Elles, an organisation that mentors girls from modest backgrounds to pursue scientific and digital careers, which benefited 229 students in 2021. Moreover, the company demonstrates its commitment to diversity by reporting the number of its employees with disabilities.

Through its partnership with Emmaüs Connect, Altice has deployed its network to equip social facilities for underserved populations. By the end of 2021, 220 locations had joined the scheme and 1,300 people had benefited from free support to acquire basic digital knowledge.

The company meets industry norms with an information security management certificate. Additionally, the company provides content control for its products.

Altice Labs’ Open Innovation programme supports tech start-ups. The company also supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and uses them as a framework for its reporting.

Altice should undertake impact assessments for its digital access programmes. There is also an opportunity for the company to make a commitment to ensuring accessibility for users with disabilities. Furthermore, it should disclose how it ensures an inclusive workplace for staff with disabilities and report how the economic value it creates is distributed among stakeholders.

Altice has the opportunity to introduce programmes that contribute to technical skills development at intermediate and advance levels as well as promote school connectivity. The company should also report metrics on its financial and in-kind contributions to its programmes and carry out third-party assessments to understand impact on programme beneficiaries.

Altice should make a high-level commitment to cybersecurity and disclose how high-level oversight of cybersecurity is implemented within the company. It should also enhance transparency by making its information security management certificate publicly available and by disclosing the number of data breaches it experiences. Further, Altice should implement a group privacy policy and make a high-level commitment to child online safety.

Altice can commit to supporting open source initiatives and standards. There is also an opportunity for the company to expand its support to social and non-profit start-ups and start-ups by entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. The company can also demonstrate inclusive and ethical innovation by disclosing the number of women it employs in tech roles and how it considers ethics in its research and development (R&D) activities.

Altice has a publicly available policy statement committing to respect human rights. However, the company does not have a publicly available policy statement to respect the ILO core labour rights. Nor does it disclose a process to identify, assess and mitigate the salient human rights risks associated with its own operations and with its business relationships. Furthermore, it is unclear if the grievance mechanism the company provides for workers and external stakeholders to report human rights concerns and complaints allows complainants to choose to remain anonymous.

Altice has a time-bound target to increase gender diversity on its board. However, the company does not publicly commit to promoting gender equality and women’s diversity. In relation to workforce diversity more broadly, it does not provide a breakdown of diversity within each employee category. Furthermore, Altice does not have a clear commitment to respect the health and safety of workers. For example, Altice is not explicit in stating that it does not require workers to work more than the regular and overtime hours. It also does not disclose the percentage of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements, and it provides no relevant evidence in relation to paying its workers a living wage.

Altice has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption, and it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationship contracts. However, the company does not disclose its approach to lobbying and political engagement. Specifically, the company has no public statement indicating that it does not make political contributions, and it does not disclose its lobbying expenditures.