The EU is Pushing to Weaken Privacy Rules for AI

Last week, Liberties sent a letter urging EU Member States to abandon plans that would empower Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies and undermine privacy and data protection rights. This is happening in the context of the deregulation efforts in the Digital Omnibus (also known as Data Omnibus). As we explained in our first analysis of the proposal, the Commission had already suggested that AI technologies should be exempt from protecting people’s personal information. The goal was, the Commission explained, to encourage European AI companies to be able to thrive so we could compete with Chinese and US companies.

Paradoxically, if the proposed text gets adopted in a future final text of the Data Omnibus, every company will benefit from that legal lack of protections - including the US and Chinese companies operating in Europe that we are allegedly competing with. As those companies also operate in Europe, they will be able to enjoy the extraordinarily business-friendly benefits and undermine our privacy while raking in exorbitant profits, undermining the Commission’s argument that European AI companies will be empowered by the proposal.

In our letter, we asked the Council to move away from the current text proposal (in Article 88 bis of the Council document) that will hand over our personal data to AI companies. For example, a tool such as ChatGPT could use information from the chat discussions to train their AI systems or Facebook could use their users’ blogposts to train theirs. Given that we are in the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU, and that Ireland is the home for most large Big Tech companies, this looks even more like a direct gift to Big Tech than something that will ensure European companies can compete.

We also criticised the speed of the negotiations on the Council side. While the European Parliament (the co-legislator) is still going through very detailed discussions (and disagreements) on how to react to the Data Omnibus, Member States seem to be rushing to accept very extreme measures in record time. They may be trying to achieve the speed of the infamous changes to the AI Act, and the damage will be similar if we do not stop them.

In the next weeks, the Council will finalise its position on the Data Omnibus. The Parliament may take much longer. There is still time to act by contacting your local Liberties member, following us here or subscribing to our newsletter on how to help protect your privacy!