In a report published on Wednesday 14 January, the two NGOs Corporate Europe Observatory and Lobby Control warn of the influence of the US digital giants on the recent package of legislative simplification measures on artificial intelligence (AI) and data, presented last November by the European Commission (see EUROPE 13755/4).
The two NGOs, which present the European package as a major “deregulation” of the digital environment, draw a parallel between the interests of ‘Big Tech’ (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta) and the changes put forward by the Commission.
“The industry has long been calling for greater commercial use of personal data” and is lobbying to restrict citizens’ freedom of access to their data held online, say the NGOs. Two proposals that are included in the simplification package, namely the amendment of Articles 4(1) and 12(5) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The introduction of the new Article 88c in the GDPR, which authorises the use of personal data for model training in the case of legitimate interest, is particularly portrayed as a blank cheque given to the digital giants.
“It is clear that weak digital rules strengthen the power of Google, Microsoft, Meta, etc, thereby jeopardising the goal of becoming more independent from Big Tech and the US”, criticises the report, which also highlights the role of the German government, the main defender of the notion of “abuse” of the right of access to data.
The digital simplification package, on both AI and the GDPR, is attracting criticism and is likely to take a laborious legislative path (see EUROPE 13785/2).
See the NGOs’ report: https://aeur.eu/f/k8m (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)