The Tech Brief

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.

Following the EU and NATO condemning Russian cyber espionage group APT28 last week, we talked to independent cyber policy expert Pavlina Pavlova about APT28’s methods, the EU’s response, and what the possible next steps are.

This week, we are discussing the artificial intelligence liability directive (AILD), a key part of the EU's continuously evolving digital rulebook. The AILD is expected to fill an important legislative gap that will allow consumers to seek compensation for damages caused by AI products. We are joined by Beatrice Schütte, postdoc researcher at the University of Helsinki and the University of Lapland, and Shu Li, Assistant Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

This week, together with Andrea Renda, Senior Research Fellow and Head of the CEPS Unit on Global Governance, Regulation, Innovation and the Digital Economy, we break down the Letta report's key technological insights, what is missing from the document, and what to anticipate from the report by Mario Draghi. Enrico Letta, a former Italian Prime Minister, whom European leaders asked to write a report on the state of the EU’s single market, published his findings last week, while former president of the European Investment Bank Mario Draghi's report is expected to be published at the end of June.

Last week, the EU Parliament voted to pass amendments to Eurodac, previously a fingerprints database, along with a new Migration Pact to boost border security. The expansion of Eurodac will see migrants’ biometric data, including facial images, collected and stored for 10 years and exchanged between police and border authorities. This includes children as young as six years old.On today’s podcast, rapporteur for the file, MEP Jorge Buxade Villalba said why he thinks regulation is necessary — and why he thinks it has been vilified be NGOs. In a separate interview, AccesNow’s Caterina Rodelli, said on why she thinks the Eurodac entails mass surveillance for migrants and asylum seekers — and why she that’s a bad thing.

This week we talk to Max von Thun, Europe Director at the Open Markets Institute about competition policy.Amid a barrage of measures and investigations on digital competition in recent weeks, the think tank co-authored a manifesto calling for a revamp of competition policy, including structural changes within the Commission. Crucial to those is a change in culture within the executive, but is it tenable?

This week, we talk to the European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, about the European Commission’s delays in responding to Access to Documents requests, their impact on EU citizens, artificial intelligence, and more.

This week, together with Pavlina Pavlova, Public Policy Advisor at the CyberPeace Institute, we look at cybersecurity issues, such as the 2024 Munich Security Report's revelation of heightened cyber-attack risks, the phone hacking of the European Parliament's defence committee, predictions for the upcoming European Parliament elections, and the United Nations Cybercrime Convention. This week's episode was recorded at the Fundamental Rights Forum, which took place in Vienna on the 11th and 12th of March, organised by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

This week, together with the European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski, we look at data protection issues, including the regulation concerning the detection and removal of online child sexual abuse material, as well as Frontex’s handling of migrants’ data, and the recent news regarding the European Commission's violation of data protection rules in its use of Microsoft. This week's episode was recorded at the Fundamental Rights Forum, which took place in Vienna on the 11th and 12th of March, organised by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

Together with Katja Muñoz, research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, and Technology, we talk about the impact of social media and technology on the 2024 European Parliament elections, TikTok and Meta’s election preparations, the lack of access for data for researchers, and even Taylor Swift.

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.