Who can become a whistleblower? Is it a person designated within the organisation?

ANSWER

A whistleblower is a person who reports breaches; one cannot be a "designated whistleblower". A whistleblower may be, for example, an employee of a given company who has knowledge of a breach; it may also be an intern, a company shareholder, or an employee of company B, which has a business relationship with company A (the employee of company B then reports the breach to company A).

The scope of persons who may be whistleblowers is listed in the Directive, in Article 4:

• This Directive applies to reporting persons working in the private or public sector, who acquired information on breaches
  
  in a work-related context, including at least:
  • persons having the status of workers within the meaning of Article 45(1) TFEU, including civil servants;
  • persons having the status of self-employed persons;

within the meaning of Article 49 TFEU;

• shareholders or partners and persons belonging to the administrative, management or supervisory body of an undertaking, including non-executive members, as well as volunteers and interns, irrespective of whether they are paid;
• persons working under the supervision and direction of contractors, subcontractors and suppliers;
• this Directive also applies to reporting persons where they report or publicly disclose information on breaches acquired in the context of a relationship with an employer that has since ended;
• this Directive also applies to reporting persons whose employment relationship is yet to begin, where the information on breaches was acquired during the recruitment process or other pre-contractual negotiations.