Business wants the GDPR loosened. Enforcement says it still works.

Loosening the GDPR is no longer only Brussels' idea. Ninety percent of German companies want the law reformed. That is the headline of a Bitkom survey published this week, with seventy-one percent saying data protection now slows their digitalisation more than it protects anyone, as Heise Online reports. The number lands the same week EU governments are debating a Digital Omnibus proposal that would let companies and AI systems reuse personal data with fewer safeguards, and digital rights group EDRi warns the change risks blurring the line between pseudonymised data and truly anonymous data.

Enforcement, meanwhile, kept working under the rules as they stand. France's CNIL this week closed its injunction against Solocal Marketing Services, satisfied that the company had finally verified consent from the data brokers supplying its marketing lists. It is a familiar pattern this month: national regulators keep enforcing the GDPR as written in the same stretch of days national governments, and now domestic industry too, push to rewrite it.

A separate privacy reckoning played out over smart glasses today, in three countries at once. German data protection authorities issued a formal warning about unseen recording and AI training through the devices, addressed to wearers rather than to Meta. Meta unveiled its largest smart glasses lineup yet the same day, including a lighter camera-free model and a new AI agent, while prosecutors in Paris opened an investigation into secret filming with connected glasses.

Meta then removed a video questioning the ethics of those glasses, watched half a million times in the Netherlands, citing its bullying guidelines, Bits of Freedom reports. The company that makes the glasses, whose footage can end up training its own AI, and now moderates the criticism of both is holding three levers most regulators only ever get one of.

The wearer, too, now carries the compliance burden.

Consumers…

Anyone deciding whether to trust these glasses now has less independent information to go on, not more. The video Meta removed was one of the more-watched attempts to explain what a camera on someone's face means for the people around them, and it is gone. A regulator's notice fills part of that gap, but it reaches far fewer people than half a million views did.

Businesses…

Businesses got the regulatory clarity they are asking for from nobody this week. The Digital Omnibus is still in Council negotiation, so nothing in the GDPR has actually changed yet, whatever Bitkom's survey says companies want. Some are not waiting: at HumanX in Amsterdam, Google DeepMind's Kareem Ayoub argued companies can build their own "deterministic governance perimeters" around AI systems, the way banks fenced off trading algorithms, rather than wait for legislators to draw the line.

Domestic infrastructure moved further than domestic law this week. Europe's fastest supercomputer, Jupiter, is now running partly on French-designed SiPearl Rhea1 chips instead of imported silicon. In Italy, Clastix raised 2.9 million euros, backed partly by Mistral, to build sovereign Kubernetes infrastructure for Europe. Neither project needed a change to the GDPR to happen. It is digital sovereignty built, not legislated.

Government…

Berlin is building two pieces of digital infrastructure that both depend on public trust in how it handles data, and both are under fire for that reason. The Bundestag is launching its own AI chatbot by year end specifically to pull MPs and staff off unregulated shadow AI tools, citing the AI Act. Its national digital wallet, d-you, is a hundred days from launch and drawing criticism from opposition politicians and consumer advocates over its pseudonymity and zero-knowledge proof claims. A government asking citizens to trust its own data handling is, the same month, negotiating to relax the standard that trust rests on.

Further today

• Swiss Tech Startups Secure Over €1.1 Billion in H1 2026 Funding · Tech.eu
• EDRi announces final programme for #PrivacyCamp26 in Brussels · EDRI
• Czech CDN77 Sells Minority Stake to CVC for $1.9B Valuation · The Recursive
• Duqu raises €1.5M for AI-powered working capital platform · Tech.eu
• 50skills Raises $6M to Scale AI Operating System for People Workflows · Tech.eu
• Estonian Defence Forces Partner with VC Archangel for Defence Tech · Tech.eu

Sources

• EU governments are debating a proposal that could let AI and companies reuse personal data with fewer safeguards, EDRi warns · EDRI
• A Bitkom survey found 90 percent of German companies want GDPR reform · Heise Online
• CNIL closed its injunction against Solocal Marketing Services after the company fixed its consent verification · CNIL
• German data protection authorities warned smart glasses wearers they carry legal responsibility for recording · Heise Online
• Meta unveiled its largest smart glasses lineup yet as Paris prosecutors investigate secret filming with connected glasses · Heise Online
• Meta removed a widely-viewed video criticising its AI glasses, citing bullying guidelines · Bits of Freedom
• Google DeepMind's Kareem Ayoub proposed companies build their own governance perimeters around AI systems · The Next Web
• Europe's Jupiter supercomputer is integrating French-designed SiPearl Rhea1 CPUs · The Register
• Italy's Clastix raised 2.9 million euros, backed by Mistral, to build sovereign Kubernetes infrastructure · EU-Startups
• Germany's Bundestag will launch its own AI chatbot by year end to replace shadow AI use · Heise Online
• Germany's digital wallet d-you faces mounting criticism 100 days before launch · netzpolitik.org