The Tech Brief

The European Commission is currently engaged in "direct" and "intensive" collaboration with California legislators, who have just approved a new AI bill that could "strengthen" and "complement" the EU’s AI regulation.In today's episode, we learn how the Commission works in California and explore whether the US state could prove an important ally in the EU’s efforts to enforce its new digital rulebook.Join Tech Reporter Jacob Wulff Wold as he sits down with Gerard de Graaf, senior EU envoy to the US for digital and tech and head of the EU office in San Francisco, and Pierre Larouche, professor in law and innovation at the University of Montreal and research fellow at the Centre on Regulation in Europe.

English singer Charli XCX’s new album, "Brat," is making waves, and Elon Musk, with his legal battles, clashes with the EU, and endorsement of Donald Trump, seems to embody the “brat” vibe. Did you miss the summer drama? Euractiv’s tech team has you covered.

A group of digital rights organisation said that Apple’s plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are ineffective in a submission to the European Commission. The EU executive has opened three non-compliance investigations into Apple’s plans to conform to the DMA, the bloc’s landmark digital competition law. In one of these investigations, the Commission said in preliminary findings that the company is in breach of the DMA with its App Store policies.We are joined by Simonetta Vezzoso, who is an academic from Trento university. She is also a lawyer and economist who a consults Article 19, one of the organisations that filed the submission.

The EU has set ambitious goals for securing its supply of critical raw materials, which are key to the digital and green transitions. Today we talk to Chad Blewitt, managing director of the Jadar Project, a highly-anticipated and highly-delayed lithium mining site in Serbia. Jadar is operated by Rio Tinto, the world’s second largest mining company. Can the goals set by the Critical Raw Materials Act be achieved by 2030, and, crucially, how important is cutting red tape to achieving these goals?

On Friday afternoon, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced it is pausing plans to roll out artificial intelligence (AI) features that would use users’ public posts to train its AI models. The company cited a request from the Irish Data Protection Commission.Digital rights NGO Noyb filed 11 complaints against Meta’s AI plans in Europe earlier that week, asking for an urgency procedure.This week, we speak to Noyb founder and lawyer Max Schrems about why they filed  the complaints and what to expect.

This week, together with Marco Scialdone, a lawyer and adjunct professor of law and management of digital content and services at the European University of Rome, we delve into the impact of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) on consumer protection in e-commerce, focusing on the responsibilities of online marketplaces and the role of consumer organisations like Euroconsumers in ensuring product safety.

The European Commission kicked off plans to boost investments in its AI sector back in 2018. But they were neither clearly defined, nor well coordinated, argued the European Court of Auditors (ECA) in a report released this week. The gap of investments and innovation has only grown with the US since these plans were put in motion, research has found.This week we talk to Mihails Kozlovs, a member of the ECA who led the report, about what it means for the future.

The Council of Europe, the bloc's human rights body, adopted its first framework convention on artificial intelligence (AI_, democracy and the rule of law on 17 May. It's heralded as the world's first binding international treaty to ensure the technology doesn't interfere with human rights. But the negotiations were riddled with criticism, particularly around the treatment of the private sector. We are joined by Hanne Juncher, Director of Security, Integrity and Rule of Law of the Council of Europe, who deals with AI and negotiated the Convention to discuss if it is worth the hype after all.

Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev was sentenced to a little over five months in jail this week by a Dutch court, for helping to create a tool that obfuscates the trail of cryptocurrencies. The tool, built and run on Ethereum blockchain, was used by hackers to launder their illicitly obtained funds.The defense argued that this was a decentralized, open-source tool, and that they had little control over its use to launder millions, possibly billions of funds by criminals.We are joined by David Carlisle, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at blockchain analytics firm Elliptic and author of “The Crypto Launderers: Crime and Cryptocurrencies from the Dark Web to DeFi and Beyond,” to discuss what this case means for developers and the crypto ecosystem overall.

Pavlina Pavlova, an independent cyber policy expert, dives into the dark world of Russian cyber threats, particularly APT28. She sheds light on their sophisticated methods and the EU's strong condemnation of these cyber attacks. Pavlova discusses the recent FEMCIVA campaign's implications for national security and emphasizes the urgency of protecting critical infrastructure and elections. She also highlights the complexities of attributing these attacks and the need for accountability in cyber warfare. Tune in for insights on safeguarding democracy in a digital age.