what i read this week - week 25 2026
As usual - not counting the personal blogs I read :)
I think after this one, I am fucking tired about hearing of digital sovereignty, and will stop reading about it for a while.
online articles
Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society (Archive) - the big news story going around.
From Vigilance to Omnibus: Is the CSDDD Heading Down the Same Path as France’s Due Diligence Law? - about the developments of corporate due diligence laws.
EU turns to US-powered AI to rank job candidates - this one deeply disappointed me. They're using the Job Matching Application by Anthropic. The system will be used to identify, score, and rank candidates across EU recruitment procedures. The article says that candidates will be informed via an AI disclaimer and will have the right to request human intervention and challenge any decision before interviews take place. I have my doubts. This is killing my desire for these positions...
AI Didn’t Kill Design, It Exposed It - interesting view written by a designer. It calls out that design in tech is so often funded by companies and advancing business goals, not just being for the people, so AI doing that now at an incredible speed to not allow questioning the design is the logical next step.
Without Open-Source Hardware, There Is No EU Tech Sovereignty - brings into focus that it also needs open source hardware, not just software, in tech sovereignty. This is a gap many aren't aware of.
Building Trust Infrastructure for Agentic AI - about how open isn't always good or safe, and in terms of agents and their skills, can be actively harmful. Quote: "What’s missing, therefore, is trust infrastructure: boring, ordinary, transparent, effective institutions that test and validate trust on behalf of people, and create a world where normal users of agents don’t have to think or worry about it, and can take advantage of the upsides of an ecosystem with a baseline of protection from the concomitant risks."
AI, Privacy, and the Hidden Architecture of Harm from Inference - it's one thing to protect personal data that is fixed information that is already out there; it's another to legislate for inference. You can access, correct, or delete personal data, but a model can generate new one (like guessing correct data you never directly shared) that users cannot reasonably foresee or control. Legislation should expand the definitions to include inferred information and probabilistic attributes, and operate on a capability basis when it comes to governance.
D.O.J. Seeks to Halt Air Pollution Lawsuit Against xAI Data Center
Digitale Souveränität: Wir brauchen keinen Euro-Nationalismus (Archive) - critical piece about the use of 'Euro' in the projects and efforts for digital sovereignty, and that the word 'sovereignty' can also be co-opted by nationalists. The report about digital sovereignty for the EU Parliament was written by Sarah Knafo, who is a member of the far right party Reconquête in France. We don't just need sovereignity, we need commons, democracy, and solidarity.
Digitale Souveränität in Scheibchen - summary and contextualization of the German-French agreements on digital sovereignty.
Die Waffen des Silicon Valley - Judgment of Alex Karp's Manifesto, which is an attempt to further cement perpetual fear and warmongering as a business venture for tech.
„Die Republik“ setzt sich gegen Palantir durch - Swiss magazine winning court case against Palantir.
press releases, policy briefs, drafts and activity reports
KI-Gesetz: vereinfachte Vorschriften und Verbot von „Nudifier-Apps“ - press release about the acceptance of the AI omnibus and summary of the changes, most notably the ban on nudifier apps :) and adjusted deadlines for compliance :(
Deutsche Cloud: 4 von 10 Unternehmen würden Abstriche in Kauf nehmen - Press release by Bitkom about their Cloud Report 2026, showing some stats about how the industry feels about the reliance on US tech.
A Simple Guide to Privacy Signals - Guide on privacy signals by the EDRi. Explains to laypeople everything to know about cookies and new steps taken to simplify consent without cookie banners.
papers, studies and similar publications
Data bought, rights ignored: European intelligence services' use of commercially sourced data (the PDF) - European governments increasingly buy personal data via databrokers that has been generated via social media apps and other platforms. National legal frameworks don't seem to yet adequately regulate the acquisition and use of this data (ADINT/CSINT/other terms etc.), since it's exchanging data with the private sector, plus this may be used to circumvent data minimization requirements. Interface (the organization) advocates for new warrant requirements to get this kind of data, the creation of a legal basis for when intelligence agencies access and use data stored on the servers of private sector entities (= mediated data use), logs for audits and awareness of oversight bodies of this emerging practice. Pages 32, 39, 42 have the main important questions (chapterwise) if you are pressed for time. I found it hard to get through, very complicated at times.
Working Paper on Extended Reality - paper on extended reality (umbrella term for virtual/augmented reality) and its privacy risks.
cases
- This one for noyb.
In total, that is roughly ~ 180 pages.
I will likely soon skip some weeks of this format soon; thinking of giving myself a break from most of the stuff I am doing for the entirety of July :) no GDPRhub summaries, no reading of my RSS feed or papers or magazines (and maybe even books), no blog posts, etc. I've been kinda doing way too much, and I need to prioritize doing nothing (except some studying) for a while, and returning refreshed.
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