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In an open letter initiated by Pirate Party MEP and digital freedom fighter Patrick Breyer, 36 Members of the European Parliament have expressed a resolute condemnation of Meta’s controversial ‘pay or okay’ scheme to Nick Clegg, President of Global Affairs at Meta. MEPs express deep concerns regarding the “privacy fee” undermining privacy and data protection, presenting a “false choice” and constituting “economic coercion”. The scheme is currently under scrutiny by the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and the Commission, and is being litigated in court by consumer organisations.

Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer comments the letter:

“Privacy is not a commodity – it’s a fundamental human right that should never be subject to commercial transactions. The ‘pay or okay’ model used by Meta perpetuates inequalities, undermines the very essence of personal security and reinforces unjust systems. Meta’s approach fails to seek genuine consent as required by the GDPR, coercing users into acceptance by making privacy unaffordable. The reason Meta insists in an unlawful consent model is because its business model is dependent on pervasive tracking. We need a true alternative to tracking and targeted advertising, with approaches such as contextual advertising. We urge Meta to scrap its ‘pay or okay’ scheme.”

patrick-breyer.de/en/open-lett…

The final negotiations (trilogue) on the European Health Data Space are taking place in Brussels this evening. One of the negotiators, Pirate Party MEP and privacy expert Patrick Breyer, points to a potentially momentous last-minute change:

“The right of patients to object to cross-border access to their patient file (Article 8F(2)) is in danger of being removed. Any nationally created electronic health record could thus automatically be made available to foreign practitioners, authorities and researchers, among others. This is contrary to the interests and wishes of patients, only a minority of whom, according to a public opinion poll commissioned by consumer organisation BEUC, agree to cross-border access to their patient records. It also does not even come close to doing justice to the sensitivity of the data, which includes records on addictions, mental disorders, abortions, sexually transmitted diseases and reproductive disorders.”

Breyer also points out other sticking points in the negotiations:

“Depending on the outcome of the negotiations, you could see your sexually transmitted diseases and sexual disorders, impotence and infertility, abortions, addictions and mental illnesses transferred to health ministries, universities and health insurance companies – without any patient control, without a guaranteed right to opt-out or any requirement for consent, even for the most intimate conditions. The patient data could be accessible under a pseudonym and remain identifiable. Ultimately, this could mean the end of medical confidentiality and deterring patients from seeking urgently needed treatments for fear of stigmatisation, possibly even resulting in suicides. Profit interests could be blatantly prioritised over the interests of patients.
Independent certification of the security of European health data systems may not be required. And the storage of our patient records threatens to be permitted even outside Europe, for example in the USA.
Overall, EU governments and the EU Commission want to accumulate, interconnect and pass on the most sensitive patient records without wanting to guarantee patients’ control over their data. , ‘Anything goes, no obligations’ is not an approach that patients can trust. Without trust, a European Health Data Space cannot exist. According to surveys, more than 80% of EU citizens want to decide for themselves about the transfer of their patient records to third parties.”

patrick-breyer.de/en/eu-health…

Today, the Members of the European Parliament adopted the Media Freedom Act. The rules drawn up are intended to better protect journalists from arbitrary content removal on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and from spyware attacks such as those carried out using the Pegasus software. Pirate MEPs voted in favour of the law, but criticise the lack of a ban on spying on journalists.

Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer comments:

“The Media Freedom Act is a milestone in the protection of journalists in Europe. Countries like Hungary in particular, where there is hardly any critical press left, urgently need it. The fact that spying on journalists’ mobile phones with spyware remains explicitly possible is unworthy of a democracy in which freedom of the press is guaranteed. However, the EU lacks the competence to stop the hacking of journalists’ mobile phones under the guise of protecting national security.

The planned European body for media services is, worryingly, supposed to coordinate ‘measures against foreign media’. However, if we start cutting off our own citizens’ access to foreign sources of information and censoring foreign media, I believe this is not compatible with the principles of a free country and a responsible citizen. The EU Media Freedom Act also fails to protect legal media content from platform censorship. This means that the arbitrary terms and conditions of social media companies take precedence over the freedom of the press.

To summarise, this media freedom law means inadequate but significantly stronger protection of the free media as a pillar of our democracy.”

patrick-breyer.de/en/pirates-o…

Today, MEPs shall approve the outcome of the trilogue negotiations on the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), establishing new rules that shall regulate the use of artificial intelligence in the EU for the first time. Sadly, the European Parliament’s position aiming for a comprehensive ban on biometric mass surveillance technologies was completely changed during the intransparent trilogue negotiations. The new law will now effectively allow law enforcement the introduction of error-prone facial surveillance and facial recognition camera software in public spaces. Therefore, Pirate Party MEPs won’t be able to support the text and will vote agai

Patrick Breyer, Member of the European Parliament for the German Pirate Party, comments:

“The European Parliament set out to ban biometric mass surveillance in Europe, but is ending up legitimising it. Chilling monitoring of our behaviour and ubiquitous real-time face surveillance in public spaces, error-prone biometric identification used on CCTV recordings even for petty offences, racial classification of persons, unscientific AI ‚video lie detector‘ technology – none of these dystopian technologies will be off limits for EU governments, including illiberal governments such as Hungary’s. Rather than protecting us from these authoritarian instruments, the AI Act provides an instruction manual for governments to roll out biometric mass surveillance in Europe. As important as it is to regulate AI technology, defending our democracy against being turned into a high-tech surveillance state is not negotiable for us Pirates.”

Marcel Kolaja, Member and Quaestor of the European Parliament for the Czech Pirate Party and the opinion rapporteur of the AI Act in the Culture and Education Committee (CULT), comments:

“The AI Act is a disappointment to me. There is a clear need for rules on artificial intelligence. However, the current form that has emerged from the negotiations with national governments falls short of what it should have done. The national governments have inserted a section that de facto creates a legal framework for widespread snooping on people by biometric cameras. Such cameras, equipped with artificial intelligence, are able to recognise people’s faces and thus keep track of who has been where, when, and with whom. The AI Act should have banned such an Orwellian tool, but instead it explicitly legalises it. That’s an invasion of privacy that Pirates will never raise a hand for. It’s a shame, because the AI Act has also its positives. I’m for example glad that I was able to negotiate rules for so-called e-proctoring. Programs that are used to check on students when they take exams online. If the artificial intelligence is poorly trained, it can evaluate, for example, noise from the hallway in a dorm as cheating. Given the impact this can have on a young person’s life, it’s worth keeping an eye on and making sure the program works as it should. Unfortunately, in the end, when it comes to the AI Act, the negatives outweigh the positives.”

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