Throwing your rights under the Omnibus (39c3)

A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of bureaucracy. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into an unholy alliance to exorcise this spectre: The EU Commission, Member States, industry, even J.D. Vance. This threatens the digital rights and rules built up in the last decade. The new EU Commission has an agenda. What started with the report of former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi on Europe's "competitiveness" has quickly turned into "getting rid of bureaucracy", then into "simplification", and finally open "deregulation". What this means is that a large number of European laws that were adopted in the last decade to ensure sustanabiliy, protect human rights along the whole supply chain, or to ensure our digital rights, are watered down, and core elements are scrapped. In terms of the EU's digital rulebook, it has already started in May with the deletion of a core compliance element in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - the obligation to keep records of your processing activities. While it sounds harmless - all the other rights and obligations still appy - it means that companies have no clue anymore what personal data they process, for which purposes, and how. A much larger revision has been proposed on 19th November 2025, with the "omnibus" legislation dubbed "Digital Simplification Package". This will affect rules on data protection, data governance, AI, obligations to report cybersecurity incidents, and protections against cookies and other tracking technologies. Furthermore, the EU's net neutrality rules are scheduled to be opened for reform in December by the so called Digital Networks Act. In this talk we discuss what to expect from the new EU agenda, who is driving it and how to resists. Our goal is to leave you better informed and equipped to fight back against this deregulatory trend. This talk may contain hope. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 about this event: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/hub/event/detail/throwing-your-rights-under-the-omnibus-how-the-eu-s-reform-agenda-threatens-to-erase-a-decade-of-digital-rights