Privacy on BeLibre - Belgian independent knowledge and policy platform

Do you trust me?

Joop Beris — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0100

This contribution was taken from the blog of Joop Beris with permission of the author.

“Do you trust me?” So began a former manager of mine during the ritualised humiliation we call a performance review. It was, to put it mildly, a discomfiting inquiry from a man whose own breaches of confidence had already rendered the term meaningless between us. But the discomfort runs deeper still, for it presupposes equality in a relationship that is fundamentally hierarchical. And if you think the dynamic between employee and employer is fraught, consider the even more lopsided transaction between citizen and state, where trust is demanded of one party while being conspicuously withheld by the other.

BeLibre Leak Detector: What your website tells strangers about your visitors

Jurgen Gaeremyn — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 21:00:00 +0100

You visit one website and around ten companies hear about it, several of them outside Europe. BeLibre’s Leak Detector records a real browsing session and shows you exactly who received what about your visit, and what that means under European law.

Cookies are just the doorway

Jurgen Gaeremyn — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 21:00:00 +0100

What happens when a website tracks you, and why ‘Accept all’ costs more than it looks

Analysis Government Requests for Customer Data

Jurgen Gaeremyn — Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 +0100

An analysis of US extraterritorial laws (FISA 702, the CLOUD Act, and Executive Order 12333) and their impact on Belgian and EU data sovereignty.

Press release - March 17, 2026

Jurgen Gaeremyn — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 15:30:14 +0100

# US Congress demands messages from European officials via Microsoft and Google

What the Belgian privacy and tech community has been warning about for years is now confirmed: those who communicate via American cloud services communicate under American oversight.

Brussels, March 17, 2026

On March 16, 2026, the US House of Representatives formally reminded ten major technology companies (Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), Microsoft, OpenAI, Reddit, Rumble, TikTok, and xAI) of their obligation to hand over all communications with European institutions to the Judiciary Committee. The letters, signed by Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, specifically target messages exchanged by European officials in the context of the Digital Services Act (DSA).

BeLibre Sovereignty Map

Mon, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Interactive map where you can discover digital sovereignty in municipalities, schools, emergency services or other critical infrastructure in our country and beyond.