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The Digital Omnibus evolutions at the level of the EU Council continue to have a mix of good and bad. Today, a quick focus on ePrivacy rules. First, some good: – There’s an interesting new Recital 46a on standardisation re consent preferences, stressing that technical solutions should allow data subjects to “easily set their consent […]
Confused about these GDPR 10-year anniversary posts in May 2026? While I have been working on it for a decade, I’m not keen on May 2016 (entry into force) but rather May 2018, when the GDPR became *applicable*, even more than April 2016, when it was *adopted*. Why? Before May 2018: – Enforcement of data […]
Stunned to see that Global Privacy Control won’t work as a refusal mechanism under the GDPR / Digital Omnibus, as it doesn’t support active change notifications. Some context: While the GDPR contains a “data subject request forwarding” obligation regarding erasure, rectification & rectification requests, it doesn’t in relation to consent withdrawal (or objections). In the […]
The ICO’s new adtech report to the UK government contains important lessons, also for legislators & regulators from all over Europe. Its suggestion is to foresee a consent exemption under ePrivacy rules (PECR in the UK) for “first-party” use of storage & processing capabilities of a device for the following purposes, if certain safeguards are […]
Global Privacy Control is great, why can’t that solve cookie fatigue in the EU? Could it be part of the Digital Omnibus 88b proposal?” A recent study examines the GPC in context of EU-level discussions on possible changes to the GDPR and ePrivacy rules. It’s an important question, as the idea of browser-level settings needs […]
What does the EU Council’s draft Presidency compromise text on the GDPR & ePrivacy Digital Omnibus tell us? (1) The Council (for now) seems to recognise the need to clarify the concept of “personal data”. As a Recital 27a would provide: The identification of a natural person should be assessed *ex ante and in concreto*, […]
Recently, there have been a few strange comments on the ePrivacy aspects of the Digital Omnibus. I’ll tackle browser-level settings later, but today I want to focus on one issue: what are the ePrivacy Directive consequences of the new Art. 88a proposal? Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive (ePD) is known as the “cookie rule” […]
What is “political advertising” – or not? And when is it permitted? Scope creep beyond legislative intent is a real danger, a risk *everyone* should care about (even if you don’t think political ads concern you). The descriptively named “EU Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising” (“TTPA” for short) has two key aims: […]
The clear repudiation of an “absolute” concept of personal data has thrown a sharp focus on the process of pseudonymisation in the world of data protection. Through its SRB judgment of 4 September 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) made it clear that personal data that has undergone pseudonymisation can be […]
Some thoughts on the leaked EU Council draft compromise re the GDPR parts of the Digital Omnibus: – This draft reads as a major lobbying win by data protection authorities and civil society. The EDPB would be given more power, the Commission no supervision, and a lot of the more business-friendly proposals would be removed […]
