Human Rights at Cisco

Our commitment to respecting human rights throughout our global operations is grounded in our Global Human Rights Policy and led by a dedicated team of subject matter experts. We continually work to identify and mitigate potential human rights linked to our business, and we regularly engage with stakeholders and their legitimate representatives to inform our strategy.

Dedicated Human Rights Function

Cisco’s dedicated Business and Human Rights (BHR) team is responsible for setting Cisco’s human rights strategy to embed respect for human rights throughout our global operations and for working to ensure compliance with human rights-related regulations. The BHR team is staffed with human rights experts, reports up through the Chief Legal Officer, and works cross-functionally with internal partners, including engineering, government affairs, human resources, investor relations, legal, marketing and communications, privacy, procurement, sales, supply chain, and others to implement Cisco's human rights strategy.

Leadership Engagement

The BHR team engages with members of Cisco's Executive Leadership team and the Cisco Board of Directors on its progress to maximize human rights benefits, mitigate potential human rights harms, and respect ethical principles in our technology solutions and day-to-day operations. The Public Policy Committee provides oversight of human rights risks that are identified by Cisco management.

Human Rights Policies, Positions, and Operational Guidelines

Cisco’s Global Human Rights Policy was first adopted in 2012 and is updated on an annual basis. The policy publicly states Cisco’s commitment to respect all internationally recognized human rights articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. We follow the approach laid out in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), including by developing and communicating our human rights policy, adopting the practice of regularly identifying and working to mitigate human rights risks, and establishing mechanisms for reporting and remediating impacts when they occur.

Cisco is advancing a global, responsible AI approach through strong governance, risk-based assessments, and workforce upskilling.

Over time, Cisco has adopted additional policies, frameworks, and guidelines to further implement our commitment to human rights. These can be found on the Policies, Positions, and Guides page.

Cisco offers tailored human rights trainings and workshops for employees and internal partners that are most likely to encounter human rights risks in their day-to-day jobs. Employees annually affirm their commitment to respecting human rights as part of our Code of Business Conduct.

For more information about how this work is managed in the supply chain, see Human rights in the supply chain.

Identifying and Addressing Human Rights Risks

Cisco conducts human rights due diligence and human rights impact assessments to identify, prevent, mitigate, and work to address human rights risks. We are continuously working to integrate human rights reviews into existing processes and procedures.

In our most recent saliency assessment, conducted in fiscal 2025, Cisco identified the following human rights issues as most salient: the right to privacy and data security, labor rights, bodily security/psychological impacts, freedom of association, freedom of expression and access to information, access to remedy, right to political participation, right to an adequate standard of living, and right to land and a healthy environment. These risks may be more likely to materialize, or to do so with greater severity, in contexts such as conflict-affected areas or situations involving vulnerable or marginalized groups.

Examples of circumstances that could trigger human rights due diligence include:

• Launch of a new product, offer, or service or a material modification of an existing product, offer, or service
• Internal review of policies and procedures that may impact human rights, such as updates to our Global Human Rights Policy, Data Protection & Privacy Policy, Cisco Secure Development Lifecycle, or our procedures for responding to law enforcement demands for customer data
• Entry into or exit from a market
• Review of a partner’s, supplier’s, or other third-party’s policies and procedures
• Export of regulated products
• Merger with or acquisition of a new company

Our human rights due diligence process draws on both internal and independent external human rights expertise. When we conduct human rights due diligence, we consider a variety of factors, including:

• The geopolitical conditions and human rights landscape in the operating context, informed by an analysis of relevant laws and regulations; international human rights norms; and the state of human rights, rule of law, corruption, and digital rights based on credible journalism and reports by human rights organizations, UN Special Procedures, academic institutions, and the U.S. Department of State
• Risks associated with potential business plans, including those associated with end users or partners in high-risk sectors
• Product capabilities, including the risk of product misuse, surveillance, lawful intercept, and other capabilities that may result in negative human rights impacts with particular focus on these risks for export-controlled products

External Stakeholder Engagement

To inform our assessment of potential human rights risks, we continually evolve our approach to incorporate emerging best practices and share our human rights practices with the broader business and human rights community. We regularly engage with external stakeholders and potentially affected groups or their legitimate representatives. To see a list of stakeholders we regularly engage, refer to the Stakeholder Engagement page.

Accountability

Accountability is core to the effectiveness of our human rights approach. We share our Global Human Rights Policy publicly on our website and share information about our efforts to implement our human rights commitments annually in our Purpose Report and through other communication channels such as Cisco’s corporate blog.

Employees, customers, partners, vendors, suppliers, service providers, shareholders, supply chain workers, and any other stakeholder can report actual or potential human rights concerns through Cisco’s complaints procedure called EthicsLine. EthicsLine is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in multiple languages. We have a strict nonretaliation policy, meaning that employees who report business conduct violations in good faith cannot be subject to any adverse employment action, including separation, demotion, suspension, or loss of benefits because of the report.