Today in European Digital
BEUC wants the DSA turned on scams, as AI fakes a bank CEO
Fraud losses reached 4.2 billion euros in 2024. European consumer groups, in a letter published by BEUC, have taken that figure to EU and national authorities with a plain demand: enforce the Digital Services Act against the social media platforms that let scams spread. The groups say the platforms' prevention measures are inadequate.
The complaint is not new. In May, BEUC and 13 consumer groups documented 893 financial scams on Meta, TikTok and Google between December 2025 and March 2026, and consumer groups filed DSA complaints against the same three companies. Earlier this month a German court told Meta that not knowing about a scam ad is no longer an excuse. A court ruling in one case is not a regulator acting on a pattern, and the pattern has been public for four months. The groups are still asking.
At the other end of the scale, the victim was a bank. Italian prosecutors are investigating multi-million euro fraud cases built on generative AI, Heise reports. In one, scammers impersonated a bank's chief executive on WhatsApp and used AI-generated voices to trick a manager into transferring 95 million euros.
On WhatsApp, a familiar voice no longer proves who is speaking.
Consumers…
Until an authority acts, what protects people in the feed is whatever the platforms choose to build, and BEUC calls that inadequate. Everything else falls to the person scrolling it.
Businesses…
The Italian case turned a chat and a voice into a 95 million euro transfer. Any company where one manager can move money on a call from the top has the same weak point, and it is a matter of procedure, not software.
Software is getting funded all the same. Paris-based Marble raised 6.5 million euros in a round led by the European VC Smartfin for a no-code, open-source platform that automates fraud and AML compliance for fintechs and financial institutions. Compliance automation and a faked voice on WhatsApp are different problems, and the round answers the first, not the second.
Government…
The letter is addressed to EU and national authorities alike, which means neither can wait for the other.
Germany shows what deciding early looks like. Its public safety radio network is moving from Tetra to LTE and 5G, to carry real-time data, video and images by 2030, and German authorities are excluding providers from risk states such as China from the switch, as Heise reports. For a network that emergency communication runs on, the supplier question belongs at the start of the migration. That is where Germany has put it.
Further today
- Apheris and Ginkgo launch AI consortium for antibody developability · Tech.eu
- Digital Sovereignty Challenge: Building Skills Over Infrastructure · Agenda Digitale
- Romania’s Kyndred raises €500K from Early Game Ventures for AI companions · Tech.eu
- Danish Sovera Security secures €535K to build sovereign AI cybersecurity · Tech.eu
- Italian Tech Achieves Scale, Needs Ecosystem to Match · Agenda Digitale
- UK venture capital matches US returns, newer funds outperform peers · EU-Startups
- European Commission launches targeted consultation on copyright for creativity and innovation · European Commission Digital Strategy
- EU Digital Autonomy Becomes Policy: From Cloud to Payments · Agenda Digitale
- Luxembourg's ANote Music secures €2M to make music royalties accessible · EU-Startups
- Paris-based Rayon raises €10 million for AI-powered interior design drawing tool · EU-Startups
Why this matters for European digital sovereignty
A letter is not enforcement, and the DSA's value against scams will be measured by whether anyone uses it for that. In May the groups documented 893 scams on three named platforms and filed complaints; the new letter adds a loss figure of 4.2 billion euros for 2024. For the letter to amount to more than a second reminder, an authority has to treat scam prevention as a DSA obligation rather than a matter of platform goodwill, and say so in a formal step. The marker worth watching is simple and recognisable: a DSA proceeding, opened by the Commission or a national authority, whose subject is scam ads or fraudulent content on Meta, TikTok or Google.
Sources
- European consumer groups urge EU and national authorities to enforce the DSA against social media platforms over scams, citing 4.2 billion euros in 2024 fraud losses · BEUC
- In May, BEUC and 13 consumer groups documented 893 financial scams on Meta, TikTok and Google between December 2025 and March 2026 · BEUC
- In May, consumer groups filed DSA complaints against Meta, TikTok and Google over their failure to combat online scams · BEUC
- Italian prosecutors investigate AI-enabled fraud in which scammers impersonated a bank CEO and tricked a manager into transferring 95 million euros · Heise Online
- Marble raises 6.5 million euros, led by Smartfin, for its fraud and AML compliance platform · EU-Startups
- Germany's public safety radio moves to broadband and excludes providers from risk states such as China · Heise Online
This daily debrief is published every evening. Source links lead to the original reporting.
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