AI: EU Member States approve "digital expropriation" of Europeans for AI companies

Under the EU's Digital Omnibus proposal, the Council — the EU Member States, led by the Irish Presidency with German support — approved on Wednesday that companies may generally use any personal data "in the context of AI", via an automatically assumed overriding "legitimate interest" for training and using any AI product, with no consent required. The provision, Article 88bis (previously 88c), would apply even to non-customers and decades-old data such as old chats and social media posts, while member states also want to narrow the definition of "personal data" so that pseudonymous data like user IDs and IP addresses may fall outside the GDPR. This is not final law: the European Parliament has yet to take a position and trilogues with the Commission still lie ahead. Max Schrems, who reported it through his privacy NGO noyb, calls it "the biggest gift that EU Member States have ever made to US Big Tech" — if adopted, it would hand AI companies Europe-wide data access that no privacy complaint regime currently permits.

• Lobsters (AI)2026-10-23 13:04