Dear supporters,

Brussels’ digital rulebook is being rewritten in real time, and the past few weeks show just how high the stakes are. We are eagerly paying attention to the Member States and their takes on the Digital Omnibus. From a leak of the first compromise text on GDPR and ePrivacy Directive, some of the most worrying amendments have been scraped out, yet much more needs to be addressed to fully protect our rights. Will this institution be the unexpected ally of civil society in challenging the deregulation of the digital rulebook?

Across Europe’s institutions, a familiar tension is playing out between expanding surveillance powers and attempts to hold the line on fundamental rights.

Last week, Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) voted to pass the EU Return Deportation Regulation. This law will supercharge a continent-wide deportation system already in place: it will restrict people’s movements, search belongings and impose disproportionate “security” measures. This will be done by tapping into the ever-expanding webs of databases, by gathering and sharing as much personal data as possible. The EU surveillance machine is well-built and running, all at the expense of people on the move and our societies.

Quite unexpectedly, the very same week, the European Parliament showed that resistance against mass surveillance can still exist. MEPs voted to tighten the latest extension of the “Chat Control 1.0”, making it clear that scanning private communications cannot become a blanket practice for tech companies and that end-to-end encryption must remain intact. The measure was meant to be temporary, but it’s now entering its fifth year of “temporary” life. Still, the Parliament cut eight months from the Commission’s proposed extension ahead of negotiations with the Council.

Enforcement pressure is ramping up. We have filed a DSA complaint against YouTube and its profiling-based recommender system. The platform looks like a casino: everything is calibrated to keep you inside but the house always wins. When the same logic structures how news, political debate and public discourse happens, it is clear how this is a losing game for citizens, with consequences extending far beyond screen time. We will be awaiting action from lawmakers.

Courts are weighing in too. In the Netherlands, a judge sided with EDRi member Bits of Freedom in a case against Meta, preserving users’ ability to choose how information appears in their feeds rather than being forced into algorithmic timelines. It’s a win for Facebook and Instagram users, civil society, and a great reminder of the power we have of holding Big Tech accountable!

• [📰read ] An algorithm hinders the reintegration of vulnerable prisoners in Catalonia by Publico. Led by the freelance journalist Pablo Jiménez Arandia, with AlgoRace and newspaper Publico, this investigation shed a light on RisCanvi, the risk-assessment algorithm designed a decade and a half ago for risk management in Catalan prisons and now used in the judicial system. The research reveals the lack of guarantees with which judicial actors use this “software”, with consequences heavily impacting inmates with fewer resources.
• [📰read ] From cooperation to complicity: meet the companies powering the EU’s war on migrants by Access Now. The EU is building a dystopian surveillance machine in its war on migrants, with the public sector paving the way for this expansion to be successful. In this latest research, Access Now compiled a dataset listing 450+ companies that are complicit in making deadly EU borders hi-tech, and in supporting the expansion of Frontex, Europol and eu-LISA – the operational arm of Fortress Europe.
• [🏃🏿do] Media Capture Watch by Trinity College Dublin researcher Nana Nwachukwu. It is an interactive data visualisation that maps the funding relationships between Big Tech companies, AI startups, and journalism organisations worldwide. It aims to make visible the emerging architecture of influence that is reshaping the media landscape — what researchers call the “third wave” of enclosure, where platforms control not just content or data, but the very capacity for independent meaning-making.
• [🏃🏿do] Digital Autonomy Newsletter by Follow the Money. The investigative outlet, together with De Correspondent, have begun phasing out U.S. tech and moving to European alternatives, as part of a broader effort to strengthen digital sovereignty and reduce reliance on foreign cloud infrastructure. In their new newsletter, they will be reporting the shift, the challenges involved, and the wider debate around Europe’s tech independence. 
• [🎧listen] Reframing Impact by The Maybe. With world leaders and tech executives descending on Delhi, AI hype is already dominating the India Summit narrative leaning hard on concepts that matter, but are often co-opted. Across 12 interviews, expert guests offer clear-eyed conversations about power, geopolitics, and the public interest. Each episode presents a “frame,” unpacking one of these dominant narratives, and a “reframe,” revealing the realities behind them while imagining alternative, people-centered futures.