Cyprus' EU presidency eyes cloud sovereignty that keeps US on side "We shouldn't take sovereignty to the extent of blocking anyone unless [they're] European," deputy minister for digital policy, Nicodemos Damianou told @euractiv.com's @claudiemoreau.bsky.social & I www.euractiv.com/news/cyprus-...

🚨 BREAKING: After years of negotiations, the Council is now ready to start talks with the Parliament on CSAM. Mandatory detection orders were ditched in order to get the sufficient backing from member states, they would now remain voluntary www.euractiv.com/news/council...

If we don't even know whether the rushed sweeping cuts to privacy will help European businesses, then what's the point? Seems like panic will just harm everyone @claudiemoreau.bsky.social www.euractiv.com/news/eus-dig...

🚨 Latombe readies to appeal his legal challenge to the EU-US data transfer agreement www.euractiv.com/news/exclusi...

Human right NGO the ICCL filed a formal complaint with the Commission against Ireland, over what it believes is a lack of independence in the process which put an ex-Meta lobbyist at the head of the Data Protection Commission. www.euractiv.com/news/complai...

The Danish Presidency is prepared to put their compromise on the controversial 'chat control' CSAM law to a vote next week in Council. Euractiv got the latest text 👇 www.euractiv.com/news/danish-...

🚨Follow Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union speech on our liveblog. We have a dozen reporters analysing every word: www.euractiv.com/section/poli...

📢 I interviewed @noyb.eu's @maxschrems.bsky.social to discuss what he thought of EU-US data transfers, and the outcome of the Latombe case, check out what is next for Data Privacy Framework court challenges: www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

The Commission is gathering industry and civil society feedback on cookies for the digital simplification package, after it dropped the ePrivacy Regulation proposal earlier this year www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

🚨 Google got slapped with almost €3 billion fine in AdTech antitrust case.... a few days after it was reported that the Commission was holding off the fine to avoid angering the US, my colleague @anupriyadatta.bsky.social reports👇 www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

🚨A surprise judgment today, as many thought the Court would throw the case on procedural grounds. On substance too, many hoped it would reject the validity of the EU-US data transfer agreement, but the Court found otherwise www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Tomorrow could see the EU-US data transfers' legality disrupted - if the court finds that French MP Phillippe Latombe has legal standing - but unlike prior similar instances, the transatlantic relationship is far more tense www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Last week Anthropic made headlines for starting to train its AI based on user conversations, but I looked at T&Cs of some of its big competitors, and turns out… they mostly all do it already! www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Adult forum Phica. eu was shut down in Italy after photos were posted without women's consent and often manipulated/ accompanied by obscene comments. This is the second such scandal this month in Italy. www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

The EDPS greenlighted the Commission's updated contractual relationship with Microsoft, following a March 2024 finding that the Commission breached the EU institutions' data protection rules. www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

📢🐳BREAKING: Berlin DPA asked Apple and Google to remove DeepSeek from their app stores over privacy concerns and personal data transfers to China. www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

MEPs were less than happy with Amazon executives not attending the hearing about warehouse working conditions. The absence was sparked by disagreement over who should attend on Amazon's side. www.euractiv.com/section/poli...

Privacy group Noyb field a complaint today against dating app Bumble for its handling of personal data for its AI "Icebreaker" feature. www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Euractiv reported first this week that Justice ministers would hold an informal debate on encryption, and balancing law enforcement access to data with privacy. This is a tricky one, and countries are still scratching their heads on how to tackle it. www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

📢 BREAKING: The data protection authority in Hamburg decided not to halt Meta's AI training plans as it does not want to be the only EU authority to take such action. www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Meta can use Instagram and Facebook users' public profiles to train its AI systems, the court says. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

I sat down with the Taiwanese ambassador to the EU last week, to talk about what the EU is missing to attract top investments in microchips: www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Most of the GDPR procedural law 4 column document @euractiv.com published yesterday remain valid after no agreement was reached in trilogue last night 👇 www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Commission ups the rumoured small mid-caps definition: initially expected to be for companies with less than 500 staff, this is now 750 in the final omnibus! For the GDPR, this does mean easing record-keeping 👇 www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Check out the draft startups & scaleups strategy that @nicolettaionta.bsky.social and I obtained. This is the EU's plan for innovative companies to escape the "valleys of death": innovations failing before reaching market & difficulty to move past "growth stage." www.euractiv.com/section/poli...

The Culture Council approved the conclusions on audiovisual services and video-sharing platforms today. Among the top priorities: prominence rules for general interest content to boost media pluralism, fight disinformation👇 www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

The EDPB and EDPS sent a letter to Commissioner McGrath supporting preliminarily the Commission's plans to ease GDPR record-keeping obligations for small mid-caps www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Take your guess on how tariffs on films could even apply 👇 But it is not the first time Trump says he is unhappy with foreign-made movies and EU’s audiovisual law. www.euractiv.com/section/poli...

The Irish Data Protection Commission handed one of its biggest fines to TikTok, but views are divided on whether it is getting tougher on GDPR enforcement.

Another grim report from child protection NGO Internet Watch Foundation, that calls on the EU institutions to hurry to finalise the CSAM law 👇

The Trump administration continues its narrative that the EU is imposing excessive fines on US companies.... even when their claims do not match reality

This week, I interviewed UK Minister for Safeguarding Jess Phillips, about the UK's legislation on tackling child sexual abuse online as the EU is still negotiating its own law:

MEPs fear that Europe may fall behind in the global chips competition. 50 of them sent a letter to the Commission calling for a Chips Act 2.0.

Noyb accuses OpenAI of letting its model "hallucinate" stories about its users, mixing up true personal information with fiction, making the stories even more believable.

European tech companies urge the Commission to help build European sovereign digital infrastructure in a Euro-stack letter. “Buy European,” sovereignty in the EUCS, open-source and industry standards, sovereign fund, read it all here:

Commissioner Mînzatu was open to it, the Parliament's employment committee will push for it: an AI in the workplace legislative proposal!

I asked @ec.europa.eu why they aren’t leaving X yet. Of the 27 commissioners, 15 of them seem to have Bluesky. 26 are on X. The one who isn’t, Maria Luís Albuquerque, posts exclusively on LinkedIn. Read more: www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

Geo-blocking is back on the table, and the film and cinema industries come to defend it again:

CSAM negotiations go on: Despite disagreements, the Council does agree on the need to not leave a "legal void" after the derogations from ePrivacy expire in April 2026.

Live from Barcelona: Chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, in charge of social media, attacks Europe again on free speech, this time in the same breath as he called for AI development to not be ideologically biased.

The Commission is in India today for the EU-India TTC. Read here about what the EU can learn from Indian Digital Public Infrastructures.

Bluesky ramps up its efforts to tackle CSAM @bsky.app's (worldwide) user numbers have risen dramatically, in the wake of which there has been a “predictable uptick in harmful content,” according to Internet Watch Foundation press release. Read about it on @euractiv.com

Lucilla Sioli says that the AI act will be part of the digital package (calling it an omnibus), and says they will look at SMEs in particular. Now time for the guessing game if this means re-opening or mere assessment......for now.

JD Vance attacked Europe over "retreat of free speech" last Friday in Munich, here is the EU's reply. www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

"Ask App not to Track" Apple's tracking consent mechanism may be against German and EU competition law, says the Federal Cartel Office. Read more about it on @euractiv.com

Today the EDPB published a statement on age assurance to comply with the DSA and AVMSD, while still complying with the GDPR, check the principles here 👇

The Commission is looking for input ahead of its evaluation of the geo-blocking regulation, and it considers the inclusion of audiovisual content, as asked recently by the European Court of Auditors (and others).

Commission to withdraw the ePrivacy Regulation proposal according to updated draft Work Programme seen by @euractiv.bsky.social www.euractiv.com/section/tech...

I spent the end of last week contacting all the European DPAs (including all 17 German ones) to save you the time. Go check out the map of EU DPAs' investigations into DeepSeek on @euractiv.com.

Given the amount of changes from the leaked draft from last week, @claudiemoreau.bsky.social and I decided to make an overview of all the changes: new initiatives, new timelines and many smaller updates www.euractiv.com/section/tech...