The Tech Brief

As the security and resilience of submarine cables became a priority for Europe after the sabotage of a cable between Finland and Estonia in October 2023, EU countries requested the Commission to take action. The EU executive published a recommendation on 21 February, that we are analysing with to our invitee of the week, Louis Obry, public affairs officer at Europacable, the industry association of Europe’s wire and cable producers.

With Nick Ashton-Hart, Senior Director at APCO Worldwide and Head of Delegation for the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, we take a look at the progress of the negotiations on the UN Convention on Cybercrime and the concluding session, which ended with a suspension on Friday (9 February).

With Klaus Landefeld, Vice Chairman of the Management Board at the Association of the Internet Industry (eco), we discuss the outcome of the AI Act and its implications for Germany. One point of discussion is real-time biometric surveillance, which was previously excluded by the federal government in its coalition agreement.

As the United Nations are preparing to adopt the Global Digital Compact later this year, we discussed this initiative with Tech Envoy Amandeep Singh Gill and what it means for internet governance, Artificial Intelligence and the EU’s international projection on digital policy.

As the AI Act’s text is finally consolidate, we tried to put the landmark law in a broader perspective with Luciano Floridi, leading expert in AI ethics and Founding Director of Yale’s Digital Ethics Center.

Joined by Gustav Kalbe previous head of unit for Quantum and now acting director for this research field, we talk about the EU’s plans to build a future ecosystem of super- and quantum computers. This podcast episode also dives into the role of the European sovereignty and standards-setting for post-quantum cryptography.

Since Brexit, the UK Competition and Markets Authority has regained its status as a prominent competition enforcer. As the British Parliament is set to adopt a bill that will increase the CMA’s powers and introduce new obligations on tech companies, we discussed with Verity Egerton Doyle and William Leslie, partners in Linklaters' Antitrust & Foreign Investment practice, the prospects of competition policy on the other side of the Channel, as well as potential tensions and similarities with the EU, starting with the Digital Markets Act.

With Aline Blankertz, Policy and Public Sector Officer at Wikimedia, we have a look at the big events that happened in the areas of data policy and competition in 2023 and discuss the EU's future and biggest challenges for 2024. We also dive into the developments of the Data Act and the Digital Markets Act as well as the EU’s approach to personal health data and data on businesses trade secrets.

Following the political agreement on the AI Act last week, we caught up with Kris Shrishak, a Enforce Senior Fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and Philipp Hacker, Chair for Law and Ethics of the Digital Society at the European New School of Digital, Studies to discuss the deal in detail.

This week, we talked to MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld who has been spearheading the work of the Pegasus investigation in the European Parliament’s already disbanded Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware.In ‘t Veld told Euractiv that no new Committee will be set up. However, the Dutch MEP is running for another term in the European Parliament and said she will keep pursuing the topic if gets elected again, but hopes that someone will do so in case she will not be elected, too.