The Tech Brief

The EU-US Privacy Shield agreement that attempts to guarantee the secure transmission of EU data to the United States, has been declared invalid by the European Court of Justice, in a ruling that will provoke major disruption to transatlantic data flows.

EURACTIV’s Digital Editor Samuel Stolton examines the issue further to find out what could happen next.

This week, 150 prominent writers and academics including Noam Chomsky, Steven Pinker, Margaret Atwood, Francis Fukuyama, Salman Rushdie, and J.K Rowling, have written an open letter calling for free speech to be preserved online, amid an ongoing trend towards 'cancel culture.' Could such a narrative have any influence on the future direction of policy in this area?  EURACTIV’s Digital Editor Samuel Stolton examines the issue further.

One question that has returned to the forefront of our minds this week in the tech domain is how does Europe position itself with regards to regulating artificial intelligence? 

EURACTIV’s Digital Editor Samuel Stolton draws on comments this week from the European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski and Vice-President for Digital Margrethe Vestager, while also lighting the German government’s position on the issue of Artificial Intelligence regulation in the EU.

The European Commission has presented its first review of the application of the General Data Protection Regulation.  This week, we take a look at some of the main findings, including how doubt has been cast over the UK’s future data adequacy. 

Palantir. MEPs have urged the European Commission to provide more details on the EU’s relationship with controversial US big data analytics firm Palantir, following a series of revelations detailing the involvement of the company in Europe.

GAIA-X. France and Germany's bid to create a European cloud infrastructure ecosystem to stave off US and Chinese competitors in the data business was launched today, after Ministers Bruno Le Maire and Peter Altmaier revealed more on their ambitious Gaia-X project.

As Europe readies itself for a public consultation on the upcoming Digital Services Act, US President Donald Trump has adopted a no-holds-barred approach to social media this week, threatening to impose strict regulation or close down Twitter after the platform fact-checked one of his tweets.

EU needs app uptake. The European Commission has said this week that the ‘largest possible participation’ of EU citizens is required in order for coronavirus contact tracing applications to work effectively.

Earlier this week, the executive's VP for Digital, Margrethe Vestager, suggested that coronavirus contact tracing apps could play a vital role in cross-borer travel this summer. 

Welcome to EURACTIV's Digital Brief Podcast, where we'll look into this issue further, in addition to giving a lowdown of the week’s biggest European tech news stories in the world of politics and policy.