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Steffi Besselink, Helsinki (2026)

25/01/2021

You think your European Human Rights have been violated? Then you can go directly to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

What rights are we talking about?
For example:
⚓ no torture
⚓ Right to life
⚓ Fair trial
⚓ Respect for private and family law
⚓ Right to education
⚓ Freedom of belief and religion

All European Union countries have signed the convention, after the WWII, and more! 47 countries are part of this convention, which means that anyone harmed by a State (part of this convention), may bring the case to the European court.

How?
👆 You have tried your case in your country, via all the courts available but no success (and bring it then to the ECtHR within 6 months after you have tried everything)
👆 You have to be the victim (can't bring a case for someone else)
👆 Need to have evidence of the violation

The ECtHR is made up of one judge from each country that signed the Convention. It can take around 1 year before the Court will start to examine your case. No surprise, considering they received in 2019 around 40.000 complaints.

Check the stories for more info!

17/01/2021

Slowly slowly the use of face covering becomes a daily fact.

Several European countries have mandated the use of face masks or coverings in public.

Interestingly, a few countries who did so, in fact also made it a crime to cover your face (- remember the burqa law from a few years back in France and Belgium?)

But back then, the European Court of Human Rights said, when human rights organizations appealed the law, "it is essential to be able to identify a person in order to live together."

Now the tables have turned. It is currently preferred, or even required, to wear a face mask "to be able to live together."

Of course, we are fighting a pandemic. Exceptions may apply. Still, about the legality of conflicting laws I have so many questions... And I'm not the only one!

Several human rights organizations are collecting reports in the EU about such laws and unfair treatment in practice regarding face coverings. I bet this discussion is not over yet!

13/01/2021

What exactly is the role of the EU if it comes to our health care policies? Could they have done more to protect us from the Covid-19 virus?

Since every european country pays and organize its own health care system, the European Union can only make policies that complement the national laws.

How does that look like?

➡️ European patients have the right for treatment in other european countries, as long as the treatment is (or authorised to be) covered by your own country's insurance
➡️ European rules for medicines and medical products
➡️ Extra protection of your health data records via the data protection regulation
➡️ EU budget for scientific research
➡️ EU lobby against "unhealthy" products, via additional tax, and, such as in the to***co products: unappealing package labels
➡️ High safety controls for foods and chemicals we come in touch with
➡️ A warning and response for cross border threats like... Covid-19!

This is all great, of course, but in the case of a pandemic, this was not enough. The EU could only be a central point for research, monitoring, response and warning. So it came to the conclusion that no country was able to tackle this issue very well on its own.

Therefore there is a new EU proposal on the Commissions desk. (Remember, EU Commission exists of appointed members from each EU country, and it proposes laws and governs and executes the approved ones.)

The new proposal is asking for a stronger coordinated and enforceable response from the EU in the event of another pandemic. Do you read me?

Basically: the EU wants to have more power when another corona is knocking on our ports.

Right now we are all tired and burned out from Covid-19, and we can't wait for it to be over. Perhaps, if the EU had an actual say in it from day one, countries wouldn't run after each other's policies pretending to know what they were doing..

But who knows really. At least we're experiencing for real how much we value our freedom of movement.

11/01/2021

Here comes a tough one. (Mostly becauseof insta's limited space 😅 But let's give it a try🙏)

Pretty much all of us love the fact we can live, travel and import our products in every EU country we want to do business in.

In short: we want rights, not laws, right?!

So let's clarify (very short!) the main pointers about EU laws:

1) The EU can only make rules, agreements and guidelines about specific sectors.
These are mentioned in the treaty, currently as:
♟️internal market rules (for example: the product specifics on your bottle of wine, or ingredients in your mascara)
♟️economic and social cohesion♟️energy♟️security♟️justice♟️public health♟️ research♟️ technology development♟️space♟️development cooperation and ♟️ humanitarian aid.

2) the two most common type of EU laws are
➡️ Directives, which you should see as umbrella's of specific laws. Member States may make their own laws, but within these borders. You all know at least one famous directive: the cookie law! Another one is the Driving license directive - your EU driving license is mutually recognized!
➡️ Regulations, which have a direct effect for everyone. For example, the data protection regulation, which is binding for each and everyone. Or the mobile roaming regulation,

For example, 🚬 the smoking free zones in Europe actually is not because of EU law.

The EU Council (which consists of a group of ministers from each Member State) RECOMMENDED such policy, but the EU countries had to make their own law on this.

The only EU regulation that exists on to***co products are about the packaging, the 'lovely' labels, ingredients, etc.

Then there are specific laws for specific situations, for example decisions from the Court or the Council or Commission.

I know.. all super confusing, but stay strong! I'll take you on this ride and let you know what actually has effect on you as a EU citizen or start-up.

Is there an EU law you know and hate dearly? Or the one you love the most? Love to know!👇

08/01/2021

This week will go down in history as plain madness. On the EU's left the US Capitol was stormed and on the EU's right there was an escalation of arrests of human right activists in Hong Kong as a result of China's new security law.

Let's say, there couldn't be a better moment in time to understand the role of the European Parliament.

The European Commission (the 'government' of the EU, existing of an appointed member of each EU country) is trying to close a trade deal with China since forever.

The EC hopes a trade deal will make sure China is contractually committed to climate change goals, and will help combat better fake trademarks and products.

In exchange, China keeps full access to the entire EU market, and receives EU protection for foreign investments. I'll explain how that looks like:

Since our financial crisis, China has been pumping money like crazy in European companies. Normally, all foreign investments are receiving a strict assessment, but with this trade deal, China has a lot of freedom to invest in real estate, technology companies and ports.

This is not at all rosy as it seems:
❕ Many of China's investing companies are state-owned.
This means that the more power this company gets in our EU companies, the more pressure that company could receive from Chinese government for example, such as employee rights (Chinese employee unions are tied to the Communist Party) or state depths.

❕There was a hope to create an equal level playing field for EU companies to enter the Chinese market as well. This is really not happening since some sectors are still highly censured and closed to foreign businesses.

But it's not all over yet. Because we still have... our European Parliament! 705 members from 27 Member States, chosen directly by us.

The Parliament has watched closely to the Hong Kong arrests and is not ready to sign this deal just yet.

The EP is like our national parlement: they have to approve the laws of the government. Without their ratification, there is no international agreement.

Therefore, think twice next time when you are voting for sending a politician to Strasbourg. 🙏

06/01/2021

We are currently dealing with quite some developments in our lives that come from a higher level than just our own government. So let's get a bit into that.

The government of the European Union are the lawmakers and the European Council ➡️ which consists of presidents or prime ministers of the European member States⬅️

This club sets the political direction and decides about the priorities of the European Union.

The European Council cannot make laws. It drafts.. conclusions. If published in the paper print of the Official Journal of the European Union, they do become legally binding.

Prime ministers and presidents discuss quarterly about the political direction of the EU. And, well, last year was busy and we have heard a lot from them:
🏛️ EU-UK Trade Agreement
🏛️ Global warming
🏛️ Covid-19
🏛️ Humanitarian crisis
🏛️ Crisis funds

In short: the European Council has everything to do with us. The prime minister, president, or kanselier, WE choose, in OUR country, has a say in our global policy regarding business, migration, pandemic, you name it.

Therefore, let's stay informed on what's happening so we send the right (wo)man to the top.
((About that.. ever noticed the lack of diversity in the European Council? Let's change that too while we're at it!))

04/01/2021

This picture is from two years ago, when I was living a different life in Boston, Massachusetts.

I kinda miss Boston, even more the friends I had to leave behind when moving back to Europe. I really had a hard time adjusting to it in the beginning. But once I learned the tricks, and 'found my community', I was able to soak up all the good stuff.

Some valuable things I learned:

🙌 It's never too late to change your life and reinvent yourself. All it takes is dedication, connections and practice. (I've seen people change their lives in their sixties! And no one will frown upon this. It's encouraged all the way.)

🙌 You need to reach out to people if you want to connect. People aren't waiting for you, but they are happy to help you further if you show initiative and - again - dedication. All my jobs in the US happened because I reached out to people on LinkedIn, facebook, you name it. They then met with me and recommended me. See this (unwritten) process as a very important and helpful pre-interview!

➡️ Boston is segregated. It will take many more years, if not generations, to really include the end-of-subway areas into the center of the city. Therefore, it feels for many, who are living in those areas, as if they are entering a clothing store they cannot afford and therefore do not belong. It's incredible important to recognize this, as this is absolutely happening as well in Europe.

We have had a crazy 2020 that no one saw coming. My wish for 2021 is not only health, prosperity and survival for all.
It's also crazy ideas. Ideas that are so bold that it will shape a new world. Instead of making it worse, let's use our skills together and make it better!

Cheers to a new life together. 🥂 (And cheers to my surviving friends who I hopefully get to see in person again some day.)

26/12/2020

Here is my face. For you it's just a face. But for your app it's an analysis. Data to identify me. By the time you are reading this sentence it knows already my facial features, the distance between my eyes, the distance between my eyes and forehead, the shape of my head, and more. With other words: it is able to identify me based on my biometric information.

We give up a lot of our biometric information, for example to our phones via our:
- finger prints
- iris scans
- voice recognition
- facial recognition

When companies want it without your permission, they have to present a thorough assessment based on necessity and proportionality. It's totally unreasonable to oblige your employees to identify themselves with iris scans, if they work in a regular company. However, if your company is producing highly dangerous and advanced materials, it might be necessary for security reasons to make sure no unauthorized people get in and get hurt.

And then there are occasions where we CHOOSE to give our biometric data to companies, voluntarily.
For example, because we want to open our phones instantly, or turn off our home security system with just a fingerprint.

Understand that when you are giving this information voluntarily, what is going to happen with it. Where does it go? With whom will it be shared? And where can you find your own data? Perhaps it's not only your data, but also those of your children.

Only by being informed you can keep track of your own data. And know where your face will go.

21/12/2020

Google Analytics is one of the most common used tools to spread brand awareness and understand what traffic you generate on your website.

To get the most out of Google Analytics, you can place a code snippet on your website, so that Google can track itself your website visitors and give you detailed insights.

There is only one problem: Google is using all the information from your website visitors also for their own purposes. This may have some serious consequences for you as a business owner, such as:
➡️the data from your website visitors will be transferred to the US.
➡️when you ask your website visitors for permission to collect tracking cookies, they also need to give this permission to Google.
➡️your website visitors need to know where they can object or withdraw their consent, as well as with you as with Google.

So can European businesses still use Google Analytics in a GDPR compliant way?

Here are some tips:

☑️make sure that you have a clear cookie banner, where you ask the website visitor specifically for consent to use tracking cookies PRIOR to actually collecting them. (A great cookie banner blocks cookie collection until consent has been received.)
☑️Visitors are informed via the privacy policy about how Google analytics is used, for what type of data, in your business.
☑️You have manually set the storage date of the cookies. (The standard is 26 months, so we suggest to adjust this to a shorter time period.)
☑️Users know where to object or how to withdraw their consent, or have their data deleted. (Check the google support pages for how you can erase customers tracking data at Google.)
☑️Have your contracts in place. You can download your controller-controller agreement and data processing agreement from the Google support site. In these agreements you see exactly what are your and Google's obligations towards data protection.

From the user's side, Google has come up with the "opt out, browser add-on" function, that you can add to your Google Chrome. When activated, Google won't track your behavior another company has added analytics to its website.

This is not easy, but if you have any questions, reach out! We'll have a chat.

16/12/2020

Let's get some hard numbers on it.

A small business doesn't mean small data!

Rokenbok, a startup for teaching kids how to think like engineers, was hacked 2 years ago and all their files were kept hostage until they paid ransome.

A mannequin maker was hacked and ended up paying 1,2 million!

Stay vigilant of error messages, unusual user names in your member accounts and fishy emails. During peak times over the holidays it's easy to miss but the price will be high.

14/12/2020

The University of Maryland found out that there is a hacker attack every 39 seconds somewhere in the world.

The most common reasons why hackers gain access are:
➡️old or outdated security tools
➡️unawareness from users (like not rotating their passwords, having weak passwords, not logging out from the system, accessing and sharing unauthorized data, opening fishy emails, etc.)

What can you do:
☑️Update your security systems.
☑️Inform your employees so they recognize the signals when something is out of the ordinary.
☑️Suggest strong passwords for your users.
☑️And have your protocols in place, such as your data breach policy, your incident policy, your back up plan, with updated information about who of your team is responsible for what.

You WON'T be judged when it happens to you, but you WILL be judged (and fined!) for how prepared you are, and how you are handling it.

24/11/2020

Real or Fake...

Last Sunday there was an item on the Dutch satire show (the show from 'America first, Netherlands second') about the technology deep learning, and making fake videos or pictures. The trend is called: .

The show showed us only a fraction of what the technology was capable off, such as changing Robert Deniro's face to a younger one in the movie but also making a fake p**n movie with the face of a friend (or not).

The tv show ended that the technology is both amazing and scary and that we need to think of a framework to protect ourselves from manipulating computers.

But computers do not manipulate us. The technology is what it is. It generates results, and builds further on data we feed it. It doesn't try to fool us, with malicious intent, to get personally something out of it. (Hell, we just voted that guy out of office!)

What the host actually wants is a framework of how we put the technology to use. How to show that one is transparent, accurate and lawful about what the technology is producing.

And that framework is already there. Of course I'm talking about the GDPR.

How this rhymes together? That, my friends, you can read in my latest article on LinkedIn: 'Deepfake: toys of the New Generation'

Steffi Besselink