Daniel Vaknine

Daniel Vaknine is CEO and Partner of Visslan, a Sweden-based whistleblowing solution to simplify whistleblowing and compliance with the new EU Whistleblowing Directive. Daniel and his team meet Compliance Officers and Legal Counsels on a daily basis to help them with whistleblowing. Through these encounters, many frequently asked questions arise from which they write articles to provide an answer to the question to a broader audience.

Effects of the Whistleblower Directive in the long term

15 March 2023
Knowledge Base

by Daniel Vaknine

Many people, especially within the compliance area, are talking about the EU’s relatively new directive on whistleblowing. From December 17 2023, all organisations with more than 50 employees must implement internal whistleblower channels. In addition to this, there are also requirements for secure data storage (among other things linked to GDPR) and an easily accessible and informative whistleblower policy to ensure that all requirements are met. Here you can find the full directive in English, but how will the directive actually affect workplaces around Europe, and what effect will it have in the long run?  Continue reading…

What types of whistleblower systems are there and how can they benefit your organisation?

14 November 2022
Knowledge Base

by Daniel Vaknine

When it comes to whistleblowing within an organisation, it is a good idea to use a whistleblower system. In short, this is a system that allows employees to report wrongdoings internally. In this article, I’ll go through the different types of whistleblower systems that are available so that you can gain an increased awareness of what methods are available. This in turn makes it easier to decide which methods your organisation can or should offer.

Continue reading…

Three examples where whistleblowing could have made a difference

12 September 2022
Knowledge Base

by Daniel Vaknine

Although whistleblowing is often represented as huge scandals in the media or on TV, it is often not quite as dramatic in reality. The majority of whistleblower cases are handled internally and concern the incorrect treatment of employees or negative working conditions. However, there have been huge scandals that have occurred at very large corporate companies. Scandals that could have been prevented with the help of whistleblowing. In this post, we therefore take a closer look at 3 occasions that whistleblowing could have made a difference. Continue reading…

Daniel Vaknine

Daniel Vaknine

CEO and Partner of Visslan

Why internal whistleblowing is superior

13 July 2022
Knowledge Base

Whistleblowing comes in many shapes and forms and is often seen as devastating for the organisation to which the allegations are directed. One amongst many examples is the recent Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. Many times, this includes the whistleblower talking to the media. In this article, we will explore why internal whistleblowing is superior to external such and why it’s essential for every organisation to enable their employees to report internally. Although we cover the differences between internal and external whistleblowing in other articles here is a brief overview of the differences. Internal whistleblowing is when an employee reports errors, corruption or malpractice within the organisation, i.e. internally. The employee uses the organisation’s own whistleblowing solution to highlight the issue. External whistleblowing is when a person blows the whistle externally instead of internally. This can be, for example, to the media, authorities or in social media. Common reasons why people choose external whistleblowing include that they have little faith in their own organisation, or because they have tried to blow the whistle internally without seeing any fundamental changes. Continue reading…

European Commission: Shared whistleblower functions in Groups are not enough

21 June 2022
Knowledge Base

by Daniel Vaknine

A number of global and large national companies already have centralised group-wide reporting systems in place and have relied on the adequacy of this global solution after 17 December 2021, when the new EU Whistleblowing Directive entered (or was supposed to enter) into force. The European Commission has however clearly rejected this interpretation. Continue reading…

Checklist for a good whistleblowing solution

08 June 2022
Knowledge Base

by Daniel Vaknine

Employees play a key role in an organisation’s well-being. As we all know, it is they who make the organisation work. If the employees in an organisation are dissatisfied or experience injustices in the workplace, it can have major negative effects, ranging from lack of motivation and lack of results to enormous negative media attention or lost partners. A critical component in the well-being of employees is the possibility of whistleblowing. Historically, there have often been situations where people are afraid of being singled out as whistleblowers, either for fear of retaliation, special treatment or getting rid of their jobs. Today, these are well-established facts amongst many within the risk and compliance industry. Continue reading…