European Pirates

16/10/2026

🇪🇺 Digital sovereignty should protect people — not just European business interests.
Europe wants to strengthen its position in the global AI race. But competitiveness and innovation must not come at the expense of our fundamental rights.

The EU’s Digital Omnibus proposal puts important questions on the table: Who benefits from changes to data protection rules? What happens when data becomes easier to share and use? And how do we prevent digital sovereignty from becoming a justification for greater surveillance or corporate power?

As European Pirates, we believe digital sovereignty must mean:
🔹 No replacing foreign monopolies with domestic ones.
🔹 No using sovereignty as an excuse for surveillance or state overreach.
🔹 No putting AI profits above our fundamental right to privacy.

Read our analysis of the leaked documents and the contradictions in Europe’s approach to data sovereignty.
👉 https://europeanpirates.eu/data-sovereignty-in-the-eu-commitments-and-contradictions/

Articles Data sovereignty in the EU: commitments and contradictions October 13, 2026 Comments 1 Data in the EU is growing rapidly in volume and production, underscoring the need for more cohesive legislation on data privacy and sovereignty across Member States. The EU’s current data strategy commi...

15/10/2026

Join us for this year’s Think Twice Conference on the role of AI in Governance.
📆 October 16th-17th, 2026 09:00-15:30
📍Brussels, Belgium

Over the last few years, AI has touched and changed everything we know and is undoubtedly here to stay. While AI can automate services and boring time-killing tasks, cyber vulnerabilities, biased data and the concentration of power are bringing up critical questions and eroding trust.

With AI increasingly embedding personal information to automate systems, the Think Twice Conference cover a variety of topics at the intersection of AI, data, digital identity and individual freedom and brings together partners, participants and allies in tech and civil society to debate the topics of:

🔸 AI for Governance - How can AI support democratic institutions, public services, civic participation, and open decision-making?

🔸 AI Governance - How can societies regulate and oversee AI to ensure accountability, fairness, openness, and the protection of rights?

We are also pleased to welcome a strong group of confirmed speakers, including:

- Helen Lalthanpari
- Alexis Roussel
- Caroline De C**k
- Jonatan Tensetti
- Jordi Calvet-Bademunt
- Narmadha Kamal
- Sebastian Becker Castellaro
- John A. Kwarsick
- Belen Luna Sanz

👉Register here: https://tt26.thinktwice.today

07/10/2026

🤖 Artificial Intelligence. Real lives.

AI is no longer just something happening “behind the screens”. It is increasingly influencing decisions that affect real people — from access to work and services to policing and institutional treatment.

But what happens when an AI system is biased?

🇪🇺 European examples show why this matters: automated decisions affecting workers, AI recommendations in hiring and lending, and predictive policing systems that can reinforce existing biases.

So we need to ask:
❓ Who checks the machine?
❓ Is a human in the loop enough?
❓ How can we ensure transparency and accountability?
❓ And who gets to decide how AI should be used?

These are not only questions about technology. They are questions about democracy and the society we want to build.

Join the conversation at Think Twice 2026 in Brussels.
📅 17 October 2026
📍 Steigenberger Hotel, Brussels
🕘 09:00–15:30
👥 English | In-person

AI shapes decisions. Let’s shape what comes next.

14/09/2026

Shortly before the Summer break, the negotiations around the digital Euro entered a new round, and the need for a digital euro is real.
Europe is currently operating within a co-dependent public digital payment infrastructure and is frantically searching for alternatives. The question is not whether Europe needs public digital money. It is what that money reveals about the people who use it. However, privacy cannot be an afterthought in the shaping of the coming legislation.
Under the proposed model, payment service providers hold the users’ identities, and the ECB processes only pseudonymized data. Through metadata, a detailed picture of a person’s spending is drawn, without ever recording a single purchase. So, while individual payments remain private, the payment patterns around them do not.
Stronger approaches have been available for decades, and we, the European Pirates, demand:
1. Offline payment should be a core feature, not a last resort.
2. The limits should prevent people from being directed online by default.
3. The reconciliation data set should be specified in the regulation itself.
4. Payment service providers must face clear legal limits on their use of transaction data.
Privacy is an engineering choice, not a technical impossibility, and safety is crucial for a trustworthy public digital payment system.
Read more here: https://europeanpirates.eu/erypto-the-digital-euro-still-has-a-privacy-problem/

Articles Default €rypto: the digital euro still has a privacy problem September 11, 2026 Comments 1 On 9 July 2026, shortly before the summer break, the European Parliament confirmed its negotiating position on the regulation establishing a digital euro, by 416 votes to 169 with 22 abstentions. Th...

03/09/2026

Do you know who gets to decide what you can consume over your phone? And why is the year 2027 relevant?

Every platform regulates and regulation exists on every platform. But regulation, as we know it today, has not always been the case. Once there was a time, when your phone worked like a real computer – if you had a program complied for your phone’s processor, it ran on your device.

Today, Android and Apple work more like gatekeeping nannies. Instead of protecting users from their own mistakes, platforms have delegated your option of choosing to themselves. What once upon a time has been a protective measure, now offers no choice to opt out.

And in 2027, Google is rolling out the global requirement that every Android developer must register centrally before their software can even be installed on any device. This change impacts not just the Google Play store apps, but all apps – even those by hobbyists.

To find out more, read the European Pirate’s latest article here:

Articles Default Your Phone Stops Being Yours September 1, 2026 Comments 0 How we went from installing anything to asking permission – and why 2027 is the deadline Thirty years ago, a pocket computer was a computer. Today it is a vending machine that occasionally lets you make calls. That is not n...

18/08/2026

Next to our latest post on why we want that copyright reform so badly, we still have our open call for Communications team members!
https://europeanpirates.eu/why-pirates-want-copyright-reform/

https://europeanpirates.eu/join-the-european-pirates-communications-team-help-shape-our-voice-across-europe/

Articles Consultation Input Why Pirates want Copyright Reform August 18, 2026 Comments 0 Someone once spent an evening choosing the order of twelve songs, wrote the titles on the paper insert by hand, and gave the cassette to a person they were hoping to impress. It was a copy. It was made without a...

31/07/2026

Stop Killing the Internet. Right now, by not 'loving' it to death but by the same effect: Not letting it go free. https://europeanpirates.eu/stop-killing-the-internet/
One of the marvels of mankind, maybe the latest World Wonder is in danger of being smothered for safety. Please join the campaign!

Articles Stop Killing the Internet! July 30, 2026 Comments 2 For decades, the Internet has empowered people to communicate, organise, learn, create businesses, share culture and participate in democracy across borders. Its openness has been one of its greatest strengths. Today, however, that open...

09/07/2026

With today's session of the European Parliament, Chat Control 1.0 is back. We mourn this loss of basic privacy in private conversation online.

Articles Social media Chat Control Revival July 9, 2026 Comments 0 Today, the 9th of Juli 2026, ‘Chat Control 1.0’ is again in force. What changes with the return of Chat Control 1.0—and what remains the same: What’s coming back: US tech companies are once again permitted to scan private mes...

08/07/2026

The European Commission has launched an initiative that asks a different question: what would social media look like if it were built around privacy, inclusion, accessibility, and user wellbeing from the start?

The proposal is particularly interesting because it shifts the conversation from reacting to problems to designing better digital spaces, with young people themselves involved in the process.

Is this a meaningful step toward a healthier online ecosystem, or is it too small to compete with today's platform giants?

We explored the initiative, its goals, the debates around digital rights and child safety, and why it may signal a broader shift in Europe's digital strategy.

Read the full article here: https://europeanpirates.eu/european-commissions-call-for-better-social-media-platforms-for-minors/

Articles Default European Commission’s Call for Better Social Media Platforms for Minors July 7, 2026 Comments 0 It would not be an exaggeration to call the period from 2010 to 2020 the “decade of digital transformation.” The world witnessed an arc traversing from the digital foundation (1990s...

16/06/2026

The course has been set. Through its Digital Decade Initiative, Europe is pursuing an ambitious goal: digital sovereignty.
From strengthening its technological capabilities to reducing strategic dependencies, the EU is working to shape its digital future on its own terms. But the journey towards digital sovereignty is about more than infrastructure, cloud services, or where technology is built.
At its core, digital sovereignty is about power - who makes the decisions, who sets the rules, and who remains in control.
As Europe moves forward, the question is not simply whether it can achieve digital sovereignty, but what kind of digital sovereignty it chooses to build.
European Pirates offer a different perspective: true digital sovereignty begins with people's control.
Read more:
https://europeanpirates.eu/beyond-the-tech-stack-the-pirate-vision-for-a-sovereign-and-free-digital-europe/

Articles Beyond the Tech Stack: The Pirate Vision for a Sovereign and Free Digital Europe June 11, 2026 Comments 0 Image Credits: Gopixa / Getty Images As the European Union moves forward with its ambitious Technological Sovereignty Package, the conversation often centers on industrial competition a...