Digital Archives

The German Interior Ministry wants to check whether manufacturers of 5G components are trustworthy. For SPD digital politician Falko Mohrs, this does not go far enough. He demands a political security check, fed with secret service information. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Two men have been detained since Tuesday (12 May) on suspicion of ‘scaremongering’ after sharing posts critical of the government on Facebook, local media reported.

Alphabet Inc-owned Google’s planned $2.1 billion buy of fitness trackers company Fitbit may harm consumers and hinder innovation, European consumer group BEUC said on Wednesday (13 May), calling it a game-changer deal in the health and digital markets.

Social networks and other online content providers will have to remove paedophile and terrorism-related content from their platforms within the hour or face a fine of up to 4% of their global revenue under a French law voted in on Wednesday.

Austrians' personal data has been publicly accessible on the Ministry of Economy's website since 2009. The liberal party NEOS and NGO epicenter.works call it the "biggest data protection scandal of the Second Republic." NEOS is considering legal action and a GDPR expert told EURACTIV Germany it could be successful.

The European Commission has said that the 'largest possible participation' of EU citizens is required in order for coronavirus contact tracing applications to work effectively.

Germany has reopened a controversial debate over whether its armed forces should be trusted to operate armed drones. While an agreement seems far off, the debate could soon get a European twist.

A recently launched EU-funded mobile application records users' breathing and coughing to diagnose cases of COVID-19, scientists involved in the project have said.

EU lawmakers debated the bloc's approach to regulating Artificial Intelligence technologies on Tuesday (12 May), in an effort to chart a path for how the EU will manage the onset of next-generation technologies.

European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič has renewed calls for European firms to gain fair market access in China after the global public health crisis has been reigned in, in an effort to restore trust and confidence.

The European Commission is examining German plans to support the fibre optic industry. The Christian Democrat (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group asked for early approval, while the fixed network industry association BREKO is opposed to the measures. EURACTIV Germany has seen both letters.

EC President Ursula von der Leyen stated in April that: "Europe needs massive investment to jump-start our economies". She said, "We need a Marshall Plan for Europe's recovery and it needs to be put in place immediately.” She wants to use …

A European Commission study on the effectiveness of the EU's code of practice against disinformation has criticised the self-regulatory nature of the framework, suggesting that "sanctions and redress mechanisms" should be put into place in order to ensure compliance with the rules.

The European Commission is to contract a study on the gatekeeping, or market-dominating, power of digital platforms in a bid to gather evidence which could feed into the upcoming Digital Services Act, documents seen by EURACTIV reveal.

Lawmakers in the European Parliament's Civil Liberties committee have signalled their disapproval at the UK's participation in a fingerprint data exchange scheme with EU member states after the country's decision to withdraw from the bloc.

MEPs belonging to Germany's CDU/CSU outfit have published a wish list for a European digital response to the corona pandemic, featuring recommendations for the lifting of quarantine restrictions for people who install contact tracing apps.   

Welcome to EURACTIV’s Digital Brief, your weekly update on all things digital in the EU. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.    “Summer is not lost.”   –  European Commission Vice-President for Digital, Margrethe Vestager.   Summer of apps. Earlier this week, the …

Former MEP Jean-Marie Cavada argues for 'a right to share, a duty to protect' approach to data sharing and privacy amid the current public health crisis.

The Hungarian government has announced plans to suspend its obligation to certain protections laid out in EU data protection law until the current 'state of emergency' period has been declared over.

German prosecutors believe a 2015 hack attack on the country’s parliament was carried out by the same Russian operative who a year later derailed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign by breaking into her emails, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported.

The European Commission's Vice-President for Digital, Margrethe Vestager, has urged EU telecoms ministers to "limit as much as possible" any delays to their 5G spectrum assignments, amid the current challenges to the industry brought on by the coronavirus crisis.

The EU's bid to regulate online platforms, the Digital Services Act, is likely to address a number of competition issues related to the digital economy, possibly through a new competition tool, the European Commission's Vice-President for Digital, Margrethe Vestager has said.

The European Commission is mulling over plans to introduce 'new and innovative financial solutions' to support the sustainability of the EU's media sector amid the current health crisis.

The latest investigative report by EURACTIV Bulgaria’s Valia Achchieva shows that the authorities are hiding the results of serologic tests which suggest that a large proportion of the population has already become immune to COVID-19. The findings shed light on blatant …