Journalist @ftm_eu covering tech and transparency. On the advisory board @access_info. Co-organiser @1AMedienrunde. Also @fantafanta@mastodon.social
Two years ago, the European Commission proposed a law that could give authorities the power to require service providers such as WhatsApp to scan all user images and videos on device for child abuse images (CSAM), even circumventing encryption. Privacy advocates were alarmed.
Why is this important? Von der Leyen said in a speech on April 8 that "[t]his questionnaire is the basis for our discussion in the coming months." It details on political and economic criteria for accession, as well as the aquis of European law.
What's this about? Early this year, the Commission announced it will buy 1,8 billion additional Pfizer doses. This made Pfizer the EU's most important vendor and fuels the booster campaigns around the EU. The deal was clinched in calls and text messages, @MatinaStevis reported.
1. Since 2013, Google gave 200m. € in no-strings cash to media after a few EU countries tried to tax Google more heavily. After a pilot media fund in France, Google rolled out a Europe-wide Digital News Initiative (DNI) which gave millions for 'innovation projects' in news orgs.
The idea that unfettered Eurocrats just would enact crazy, arbitrary laws took hold in the British imagination. It became one of these narratives that are so powerful that they are hard to refute with facts. 
LIBE chair @JFLopezAguilar agrees that the quality of replies by the Commission to written inquiries by parliament is very poor, "absolutely unacceptable". The Commission can not just copy-paste legal situation, but must address the political nature of the questions.
Back in 2009, Commissioner Verheugen got the major mobile manufacturers in the room and made them promise to unify the hodgepodge of charging plugs that previously had made it impossible to use chargers made for other devices.
In the past few months, the Irish DPC faced criticism for acting slowly on a number of key cases involving Facebook, Google and other giants. Now at least two investigations are moving to an unprecedented new phase - decision made jointly by European data protection authorities.
This is a timely intervention by a group of states that profit from a booming tech industry, be it Ireland as coporate base for companies such as Facebook or Sweden with its Spotify, as well as start-up-loving Estonia and tax-management-accomodating Luxembourg and NL.
Civil society warns parts are deeply problematic. A joint letter by NGOs recently reminded member states the new law "must respect fundamental rights and freedoms, the constitutional traditions of the Member States and existing Union law in this area." edri.org/wp-content/upl…
On a first look, the most interesting bit is that the agreement may allow Eurostat to scrape data from, say, Airbnb's website and access information via API. 