Smart TVs are capable of tracking user data, including viewing habits and app usage, which can lead to personalized advertising and content recommendations. Users may prefer to limit this tracking to protect their privacy.
DINUM will coordinate a cross-ministerial plan to reduce dependence on suppliers outside Europe. Each ministry will be required to develop its own plan by this fall, covering the following areas: workstations, collaboration tools, antivirus software, artificial intelligence, databases, virtualization, and network equipment.
Yesterday (Jan. 20), the Commission unveiled its revised Cybersecurity Act proposal after months of behind-the-scenes negotiations that reportedly caused substantial friction between officials and member states. This sweeping update introduces measures to identify and potentially exclude "high-risk" third countries and companies from Europe's critical digital infrastructure across 18 essential sectors, including energy systems. As cybersecurity threats continue rising since the original Act took effect seven years ago, the EU is essentially drawing new battle lines in the global tech landscape.
The groups complain about "the increasing concentration of power and lack of alternatives in digital markets, the push for deregulation, and the urgent need to enforce digital laws to protect our fundamental rights and create a level playing field for competition and innovation."
Ad fraud isn't just a marketing problem anymore - it's a full-scale threat to the trust that powers the digital economy. In 2024 alone, fraud in mobile advertising jumped 21%, while programmatic ad fraud drained nearly $50 billion from the industry. During data privacy week 2026, these numbers serve as a reminder that ad fraud is not only about wasted budgets - it's also about how consumer data moves, gets tracked, and sometimes misused across complex ecosystems.
How do privacy regulators decide which companies to poke? Often, it's a consumer complaint. Other times, it's a headline. And, sometimes, it's just personal. Regulators are consumers, too, after all. But it's important to remember that every brush with a regulator doesn't turn into a full-blown case, said privacy attorney Tyler Bridegan. Bridegan spent nearly two years as director of privacy and tech enforcement for the Texas attorney general's office. He left government work and returned to private practice in October as a partner at Womble Bond Dickinson.
The European Parliament has taken a rare and telling step: it has disabled built-in artificial intelligence features on work devices used by lawmakers and staff, citing unresolved concerns about data security, privacy, and the opaque nature of cloud-based AI processing. The decision, communicated to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in an internal memo this week, reflects a deepening unease at the heart of European institutions about how AI systems handle sensitive data.