Tech
Europe’s data protection supervisors warn over plans to ‘narrow’ privacy rights | Computer Weekly
Europe’s data protection supervisors have warned that proposals by the European Commission to reform privacy law by narrowing the definition of personal data could erode privacy rights for EU citizens.
The regulators said in a joint response with the European Data Protection Board, that the proposed changes raise “significant concerns” and could adversely affect the level of protection for individuals’ personal data.
The warning comes as the European Commission presses ahead with proposals to reform a raft of EU data protection laws through a “Digital Omnibus” regulation which it says will simplify compliance for businesses and will boost EU competitiveness.
The European Data Protection Board, and national European Data Protection Supervisors warned in a joint opinion that some of the proposed measures could damage privacy rights of individuals, create legal uncertainty and make data protection law more difficult to apply.
The contested proposals include changes to the definition of personal data that would weaken privacy rights by allowing organisations to treat personal data as non-personal data if they processed it in a way that did not identify individuals.
Proposals ‘go beyond’ European law
Although the proposals had been welcomed by many data protection practitioners as a way to simplify compliance with data protection and privacy regulations, the regulators have sounded a warning bell.
They “strongly urge” legislators not to adopt the proposed changes to personal data, arguing that they “go far beyond a targeted or technical amendment” and go far beyond EU case law by “significantly narrowing the concept of personal data”.
The regulators also raise concerns about proposals that could water down individual’s rights not to be subject to automatic decision-making by AI or software through a proposed “exhaustive list” of cases where automatic decision making would be allowed.
Another proposal that would allow the European Commission new powers to determine whether pseudonymized data should no longer be classed as personal data, has also sparked calls for clarification.
The regulators warn that proposals to restrict the right of people to make subject access requests to people motivated by ‘data protection’ concerns is not compatible with EU law.
If implemented, this proposal is likely to exclude access requests made by journalists, academics or policy makers, for non-data protection purposes, such as journalistic or academic research.
They also call for the Commission to fine-tune proposals that would allow organisations to use special categories of data – including data on political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, health and sexual orientation – when they are used in “incidental” and “residual” way to train our use AI systems.
Reporting data breaches simplified
The EDPB and the data protection supervisors support many of the EU’s proposals, including plans to make reporting data breaches less painful for companies.
The European Commission proposes raising the threshold of risk before companies need to make a notification and extending the deadline to file a notification from 72 to 96 hours.
“This change is not expected to substantially affect the level of protection for data subjects but would significantly reduce the administrative burden for controllers, given that they would only have to notify data breaches that are likely to result in a high risk to the rights and freedoms of data subjects,” they said.
Another proposal to offer alternative ways for people to consent to cookies to avoid “consent fatigue” and a “proliferation of cookie banners,” for example by consenting to cookies once on a particular computer, have also been welcomed.
However the regulators remain concerned about the proposed changes to the definition of personal data.
The European Data Protection Supervisor, Wojciech Wiewiórowski said, “These changes are not in line with the Court’s case law and would significantly narrow the concept of personal data.”
Anu Talus, chair of the European Data Protection Board, said any changes to EU Data protection law must bring legal certainty while maintaining a high level of protection of individual rights and freedoms.
“We strongly urge the co-legislators not to adopt the proposed changes to the definition of personal data. These changes are not in line with the Court’s case law and would significantly narrow the concept of personal data,” she added.
Isabelle Roccia, managing director for Europe for IAPP, a professional association with 90,000 members, said that privacy and data protection professionals were in favour of the EU’s proposals.
“The Commission proposal to narrow the scope of personal data definition was welcomed by many practitioners as a sign of pragmatism in the interpretation of the GDPR. If adopted, it would have consequential impact in easing many friction points across contractual obligations and data transfer rules among others,” she said.
“With this joint opinion, EDPS and EDPB are signaling that they want to preserve the conservative and data-subject-first approach they have established in the past decade,” she added.
She said that business leaders would also welcome legal certainty around the legal basis for when developers can use “legitimate interest” to process personal data to train AI models.
Commission proposals benefit US big tech
The campaign group, noyb, said that the “Digital Omnibus” proposed sweeping changes to the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive that were disguised as simplification measures.
The group claims that the changes would not help EU businesses that have to complete “useless” paperwork to comply with data protection laws, but would mainly be useful to big US tech companies.
Max Schrems, privacy lawyer and honorary chair of noyb, said, “the independent authorities have called out key changes for what they are: neither ‘technical change’ nor ‘simplification’, but limitations of the right to data protection for EU residents”.
Tech
The Best Babbel Promo Codes and Deals for April 2026
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Tech
Robotaxi Outage in China Leaves Passengers Stranded on Highways
An unknown technical problem caused a number of robotaxis owned by the Chinese tech giant Baidu to freeze on Tuesday in the middle of traffic, trapping some passengers in the vehicles for more than an hour.
In Wuhan, a city in central China where Baidu has deployed hundreds of its Apollo Go self-driving taxis, people on Chinese social media reported witnessing the cars suddenly malfunction and stop operating. Photos and videos shared online show the Baidu cars halted on busy highways, often in the fast lane.
A college student in Wuhan tells WIRED that she was stuck in a Baidu robotaxi with two friends for about 90 minutes on Tuesday. (She asked to be only identified with her last name, He, to protect her privacy.) The student says the car malfunctioned and stopped four or five times during the trip before it eventually parked in front of an intersection in eastern Wuhan. Luckily, it was not a busy road, and the group was not in immediate danger. The screen display in the car asked the passengers to remain in the car with seatbelt on and wait for a company representative to come “in five minutes,” according to a photo He shared with WIRED.
He says it took about 30 minutes to reach a Baidu customer representative on the phone. “They kept saying it would be reported to their superior. But they didn’t explain what caused [the outage] or let us know how long we needed to wait for the staff to come,” He says. But no one ever came, and after another hour of waiting, the three passengers decided to just get out and go home by themselves (the doors weren’t locked).
On Chinese social media, other passengers also complained about being unable to reach Baidu’s customer support. “I tried every way I could think of to call for help using the options the app showed, but the phone line wouldn’t go through, and when I pressed the SOS button it told me it was unavailable. So then what exactly is the SOS for?” wrote one person in a post on RedNote alongside a video showing the button not working. She said she had to force the door to open and get out of the car as traffic halted to a complete stop behind her robotaxi. “Apollo Go, you really owe me an apology,” she wrote.
Baidu didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Local police in Wuhan issued a statement around midnight in China that said the situation was “likely caused by a system malfunction,” but the incident is still under investigation. No one was injured and all passengers have exited the vehicles, the police added. It’s unclear how many of Baidu’s robotaxis may have been impacted.
One dash cam recording posted to RedNote shows a car passing 16 Apollo Go vehicles parked on the road in the span of 90 minutes. On several occasions, the video shows the driver narrowly avoiding hitting the robotaxis by braking or changing lanes at the last minute.
Others were apparently not as fortunate. In another RedNote post, a man claimed he crashed into one of the malfunctioning Baidu vehicles. The man wrote in the caption that he was driving over 40 mph on a highway when the car in front of him suddenly changed lanes to avoid the stopped robotaxi. He couldn’t react fast enough and ended up running into the self-driving car. Photos of the man’s orange SUV being towed away show that the car’s front-right fender was completely torn off, and other parts appeared to have sustained major damage.
Tech
Our Favorite Affordable Air Purifier Is Temporarily Even Cheaper
Tired of the stale, fetid air looming over your apartment like a cloud? Check out the Coway Airmega Mighty, an already wallet-friendly home air purifier that’s even cheaper right now as part of the Amazon Big Spring Sale. It’s currently marked down to just $154, a $76 discount from its typical price, but you’ll want to move quickly if you’re interested, as the deal is only available for a limited time.
Despite its low price tag and squat stature, the Airmega Mighty is capable of cleaning a substantial amount of space. At full bore, it can handle a 361-square-foot space, although you’ll get the best performance, and save your ears, if you’re closer to a 200-square-foot room. If you don’t want it running constantly, there are built-in timers to automatically shut off after 1, 4, or 8 hours, or you can use Eco Mode, which will run until the Might doesn’t sense any dirty air for half an hour.
That’s right, the Airmega Mighty has a built-in air quality sensor, and it reflects the current state of the air quality using a colored light with three levels. It uses those readings to automatically adjust the fan speed and timing settings on the fly, as well as giving you a peak into how bad the air you’re breathing right now is for you. While it lacks integration with smart home setups like Google Home, it makes up for it by handling all of its own business without Wi-Fi or extra apps on your phone.
While the Coway Airmega Mighty is available in three colors, only the black and silver model is currently discounted, so you’ll have to pay full price if it doesn’t match your living room’s color scheme. We’ve put in the work testing every air purifier we could get our hands on, so make sure to check out the full guide if you’re trying to clean up your space. The Coway is discounted as part of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, and we’ve got the best deals from products we’ve tested gathered in one place if you want to save some bucks.
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