EDRi-gram, 18 February 2026

What has the EDRi network been up to over the past few weeks? Find out the latest digital rights news in our bi-weekly newsletter. In this edition: A competitiveness feast with our rights on the menu 🍽️

By EDRi · February 18, 2026

Dear supporters,

Last week, EU leaders gathered in a Belgian castle to “boost competitiveness.” The buzzwords echoed through Alden Biesen’s halls: scale up, tear down barriers, lighten the load.

All translated to: deregulation.

The medieval setting feels oddly appropriate for the bonfire of safeguards we are witnessing. Because, from where we stand, this looks less like a strategy and more like a feast, with social, environmental and digital rights served as the main course.

Take the Digital Omnibus for example, it proposes to remove Article 49(2) from the AI Act, allowing AI providers to dodge registration of high-risk systems by self-declaring they’re “not high risk”. This is why we joined 60 other civil society organisations addressing EU decision makers: this move guts one of the core transparency safeguards of the AI Act and it is all happening for… ensuring an estimated €100 saving per company. Name a worse trade.

And just when we need legislators to stand more firm than ever against the Digital Omnibus proposal, a former Meta lobbyist is appointed rapporteur of the file at the European Parliament in the ITRE Committee. Ah, good old conflict of interest – we don’t hide it anymore these days.

Some good news! This week we’re proud to launch KISS – Keep it Safe and Secure – our campaign to defend encryption and ban spyware. At a time when spyware and other threats are burgeoning, we are standing by encryption, the backbone of our freedoms both online and offline. Sign our petition to protect the safety of our communications and devices.

Across this newsletter, there are reminders that different struggles are unfolding on different fronts: data retention laws that continue to stretch the limits of legality, social media influencing electoral outcomes, foreign pressures on the application of European regulations, and consultations that risks diluting hard-won safeguards. All this remind us about who holds power, who holds it accountable, and that alternatives to today’s reality are within our reach. Together, we will keep pushing for them.

RECOMMENDED

  • [đź“°read ] Big Tech lobby playbook by SOMO. All around the world, Big Tech is deploying powerful strategies to influence and shape laws in their favour. This resource exposes their tools and strategies, showcasing how these companies shape the very environment in which laws are made. Drawing on interviews with those challenging Big Tech and hundreds of official documents, lobby leaks, and media reports, it features case studies from Australia, Brazil, India, the EU, Kenya and the US. Read it here.
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  • [đź“°read ] Addicted to the algorithm by Corporate Europe Observatory. As the EU prepares the Digital Fairness Act (DFA) to tackle the addictive nature of social media design, big tech companies are coming together to aggressively protect their business models full scale lobbying battle against this legislation. Read more about it here.
  • [🎧listen] Invisible borders: the tech and violence of Fortress Europe by Border Violence Monitoring Network. The technology and defence industry is deeply embedded in the EU’s border policy, benefiting from increasingly hostile approaches to migration. As governments invest billions in border surveillance technologies, the consequences are felt most acutely by people seeking safety and a dignified life. This podcast series examines how expanding surveillance infrastructures are experienced by people on the move, at borders and along migration routes, and the human cost of a rapidly expanding surveillance regime. Listen now.
  • [đź“ş watch] Who really control AI? by Autonomy Institute. Since the emergence of ChatGPT, generative AI has been heralded as a technology poised to revolutionize our world. But beyond the hype and hyperbole, who truly wields power over this transformative technology? In this talk, author Nick Srnicek explores the geopolitical economy of artificial intelligence, revealing how a handful of powerful corporations and states are engaged in a monumental struggle to control its future. Watch it here.

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