This week, the European Commission published two digital omnibus proposals. The European Commission presents these proposals as a simplification of EU legislation, but in reality, important human rights safeguards are being seriously weakened.

Not much remains of the legal safeguards 

These digital omnibuses (digital omnibusHere you can read the Digital Omnibus and digital omnibus AIHere you can read the Digital Omnibus on AI) reopen the most important laws in which digital rights are guaranteed, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the ePrivacy Directive, and the AI Act. This is happening while the AI Act, notably after years of negotiation, is in the middle of the implementation phase.

Under the ePrivacy Directive, companies are currently required to ask for consent if they want to track you online. The proposal scraps the consent requirement, allowing companies to map out your entire online behavior without your permission.

It is also proposed to narrow the definition of personal data, as regulated in the GDPR, making it easier to process encrypted data. This is despite the fact that encrypted data is regularly easily traceable to individuals.

Another striking proposal is that special categories of personal data, which are subject to a processing ban under the GDPR, may be used to train AI. This includes data regarding someone’s religion, ethnicity, health, sexual orientation, etcetera.

Additionally, it is proposed to postpone the fining of vendors who bring dangerous AI applications to the market. This has nothing to do with simplifying legislation, but with stripping down a legal framework intended to protect people against risky data usage. The protection of human rights in the AI Act was already very slim. Now that attempts are being made to scrape away even more, few rights remains.

European values on sale

The EU seems to feel a strong urgency to enter into a race with the US and China. The many rules in the EU would supposedly hinder development. But the new omnibus proposals focus on the short term and are not future-proof. If the EU truly wants to distinguish itself in the field of digital innovation, it should stand firm on the protection of human rights in the development and deployment of technology. However, the European Commission now seems to have succumbed to pressure from the tech lobby and places market interests above the interests of its citizens. And with that, European values are being put up for sale.

We continue to advocate for protective legislation

Bits of Freedom is committed to preventing the European Union from weakening people's rights. We do this alongside our established partnersread the analyse van EDRi here in the European digital rights field,For example, we sent the following letter to the ECas well as in collaboration with other NGOs across various sectors that are equally affected by the European Commission’s push for deregulation.