ASUS

ASUS contributes to access to technology for low-income children by donating computers through its Taiwan Digital Opportunity Centre. The company is committed to integrating accessible design principles in its products and it also discloses the number of its employees with disabilities. Additionally, ASUS discloses its community investments.

The company’s Digital Happy Learning Camp teaches children from low-income backgrounds and rural areas a range of digital skills, from programming to computer drawing. The company also supports school connectivity by donating laptops to elementary and middle schools.

ASUS has a chief information security officer and an Information Security Management Committee with clear responsibility for digital security. The company meets industry norms by having a security incident response team and its information security management certificate is publicly available. It follows best practice by reporting the number of data breaches. The company also considers data privacy a key topic in its materiality analysis and has a group-level privacy policy.

ASUS shares open source code and collaborates with universities on artificial intelligence (AI) research projects. It is also part of the Participatory Urban Living for Sustainable Environments (PULSE) project, which uses big data to support public health.

Little evidence was found to show the company’s support for accessibility. ASUS can consider introducing a programme to support digital opportunities for women and girls. Further, the company can increase transparency by disclosing how its economic value is distributed among stakeholders, and by reporting its taxes paid and employment in its main markets.

ASUS can consider undertaking an impact assessment of its Digital Happy Learning Camp. It also has an opportunity to introduce programmes to support intermediate and technical digital skills development.

ASUS should make a high-level commitment to cybersecurity as well as child online safety.

ASUS has the opportunity to enhance its contribution to the technology innovation ecosystem by supporting social or non-profit start-ups and entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. It can also demonstrate how it is supporting inclusive innovation by disclosing the number of women in technical roles at the company. Alongside this, ASUS should demonstrate how it considers ethics in its research and development (R&D) activities.

ASUS commits to respecting human rights. It also has a publicly available policy statement that expects its business relationships to commit to respecting the ILO core labour rights. For its own operations, however, the company only states that it ‘complies’ with the ILO labour rights, which does not constitute a policy commitment. The company discloses a process to identify human rights risks in its business relationships. But no evidence was found that the company discloses a process to identify, assess and act on the salient human rights risks associated with its own operations. It is also unclear if ASUS’s grievance mechanism for reporting human rights issues is available to all stakeholders, and if it allows complainants to remain anonymous.

ASUS publicly commits to respecting the health and safety of workers, and it places health and safety expectations on its business relationships. In relation to workforce diversity, the company provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by gender. However, it can consider disclosing against other indicators of diversity per employee category. Furthermore, the company makes no explicit statement indicating that it does not require workers to work more than the regular and overtime hours, and it does not disclose the percentage of its workforce covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Although ASUS has a global tax strategy, it does not assign responsibility for this tax strategy to an executive or board-level individual or group. Furthermore, the company does not disclose a breakdown of income tax payments in individual tax jurisdictions. The company has a publicly available policy statement prohibiting bribery and corruption and it includes anti-bribery and anti-corruption clauses in its business relationship contracts. Nevertheless, ASUS lacks relevant information in relation to lobbying and political engagement. Specifically, the company makes no public statement to indicate that it does not make political contributions, and it does not disclose its lobbying expenditures.