Latest news with #MaxSchrems
Euronews
20-05-2025
- Business
- Euronews
Commission to offer mid-cap companies data protection relief
The European Commission will offer relief to small mid-cap companies burdened by the current scope of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in a rule simplification package known as an Omnibus to be published on Wednesday, according to a working document seen by Euronews. Currently, companies with fewer than 250 employees are exempt from the data privacy rules to reduce their administrative costs, the Commission now proposes to extend this derogation to the so-called small mid-cap companies. Small mid-cap companies can employ up to 500 employees and make higher turnovers. Under the plan - the Commission's fourth such Omnibus - such companies will only have to keep a record of the processing of the users' data when it's considered 'high risk', for example private medical information. The change comes seven years after the GDPR took effect. Since then the rulebook has shielded consumer data from US tech giants but is also perceived as burdensome for smaller and mid-sized companies that often did not have the means to hire data protection lawyers. The biggest fine issued under the rules so far is €1.2 billion on US tech giant Meta: the Irish data protection authority fined the company in 2023 for invalid data transfers. Although fines are generally lower for smaller businesses, at up to €20 million or 4% of annual turnover they remain significant. In the Netherlands for example, VoetbalTV, a video platform for amateur football games, was fined €575,000 by the Dutch privacy regulator in 2018. Although the company appealed and the court overturned the fine, it had to file for bankruptcy. Both EU lawmaker Axel Voss (Germany/EPP), who was involved in steering the legislation through the European Parliament, and Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, whose organisation NOYB filed numerous data protection complaints with regulators, called for different rules for smaller companies earlier this year. Under the plan, 90% of the businesses – small retailers and manufacturers -- would just face minor compliance tasks and would not need an in-house data protection officer anymore, no excessive documentation and lower administrative fines, capped at €500,000. Voss said his proposal would not weaken the EU's privacy standards, but make it 'more enforceable, and more proportionate'. Similar calls are coming from the member states: the new German government stressed in its coalition plan that it will work on EU level to ensure that 'non-commercial activities (for example, associations), small and medium-sized enterprises, and low-risk data processing are exempt from the scope of the GDPR.' By contrast, civil society and consumer groups have warned that the Commission's plan to ease GDPR rules could have unintended consequences. On Tuesday, privacy advocacy group EDRi stated in an open letter that the change risks 'weakening key accountability safeguards' by making data protection obligations depend on company size rather than the actual risk to people's rights. It also fears this could lead to further pressure to roll back other parts of the GDPR. Consumer advocates share similar concerns, in a letter from late April, pan-European consumer group BEUC warned that even small companies can cause serious harm through data breaches. It argued that using headcount or turnover as a basis for exemptions could create legal uncertainty and go against EU fundamental rights. Both groups say the focus should instead be on better enforcement of existing rules and more practical support for small companies. Meanwhile reforms of the data privacy law are under negotiation between the Council and the European Parliament. A new round of political discussions on the GDPR Procedural Regulation is expected to take place on Wednesday. EU institutions are attempting to finalise a long-awaited deal to improve cooperation between national data protection authorities. The regulation is meant to address delays and inconsistencies in how cross-border cases are handled under the GDPR, by harmonising procedures and timelines. According to experts familiar with the file, one of the main sticking points is whether to introduce binding deadlines for national authorities to act on complaints. While the Parliament has pushed for clearer timelines to speed up enforcement, some member states argue that fixed deadlines could overwhelm authorities and increase legal risks. This change is however not expected to impact the Commission's 4th Omnibus package. Chip giant Nvidia painted its roadmap for an artificial intelligence (AI), agentic AI, and humanoid future at the COMPUTEX technology conference in Taiwan on Monday, with CEO Jensen Huang highlighting the country as "the computer epicentre". Taiwan-born Huang said he had been coming to the tech fair for the past 30 years and that his parents were in the audience. Back in 2016, when he first started speaking about GTX graphic cards, he said no one understood what he was talking about and there were few clients. It was then that the company donated its technology to the then-non-profit OpenAI. The rest, as they say, is history. Here are all the highlights from Huang's keynote speech, which Euronews Next attended. Wearing his trademark black leather jacket in 30-degree Celsius heat and a humid climate, Huang announced that Nvidia would build an AI factory supercomputer, which he called the "first AI supercomputer for Taiwan's ecosystem". He did not go into much detail, but he did say Nvidia would partner with Foxconn, the Taiwanese government, and chip maker TSMC. The AI supercomputer will help fuel innovation and expand AI computing in Taiwan, which will help the country's scientists and start-ups, Jensen said. "Our plan is to create an AI-focused industrial ecosystem in southern Taiwan," said Minister Wu Cheng-Wen of the National Science and Technology Council in a statement. "We are focused on investing in innovative research, developing a strong AI industry, and encouraging the everyday use of AI tools. Our ultimate goal is to create a smart AI island filled with smart cities, and we look forward to collaborating with NVIDIA and Hon Hai to make this vision a reality". "No company in history has ever revealed a roadmap for five years at a time, no one will tell you what's coming next," Huang said. "But we realised Nvidia is not a tech company only anymore, it's an infrastructure company," he added. As well as specifying that Nvidia is an AI infrastructure company, he added that the current infrastructure built on electricity and the Internet will be transformed into an 'intelligence infrastructure' where AI is integrated into everything. Another thing we will be talking about in five years, says Huang, is tokens, which are any digitally transferable asset between two people, for example, but not limited to, cryptocurrency. "Very soon, we will be talking about how many tokens we produce every hour," he said, adding that the AI infrastructure business will be measured in "trillions of dollars". AI agents, described as digital assistants, will also continue to generate a buzz in the next five years, Huang said. The future Huang predicts is that there will be many digital employees who will fill the labour shortage. "The shortage of labour is limiting the world's ability to grow," he said, adding that AI agents can work with humans to plug this gap. He said that Nvidia engineers have a "layer of AI agents" that help them with their tasks. "We have to create the necessary tools for workers to manage and improve AI agents," he said, adding that AI agents could even speak to each other in the future. But before the real development gets underway, Huang said that "we have to reinvent computing". Lastly, Huang announced a new office for Nvidia's Taiwan operation, which will be called 'Nvidia Constellation'. Engineers in Taiwan are growing beyond the limits of our current office, so we are building this brand new office". Huang said that work on the building will start as soon as the company can, but did not set a firm date.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta Platforms (META) Faces EU Legal Threat Over AI Data Use
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) stands against other AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. Days after the Biden-era rule on AI chips export was rescinded, a bipartisan group of eight U.S. lawmakers has now introduced a bill requiring makers of artificial intelligence chips to include technology that verifies the location of their chips before exporting them. Introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Chip Security Act will aim to address reports of U.S. export-controlled AI chips being smuggled into China. The bill comes shortly after US President Donald Trump began his tour of the Middle East this week, announcing several deals that will send AI chips to countries in the Middle East. This has been despite growing opposition from some inside the US government. READ NEXT: and 'In order for the United States to maintain our technological advantage, we must employ safeguards to help ensure export controls are not being circumvented, allowing these advanced AI chips to fall into the hands of nefarious actors.' For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (). A team of developers working in unison to create the company's messaging Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is a global technology company. On May 14, Austrian advocacy group NOYB said it will seek an injunction against Meta Platforms. The said injunction may lead to substantial claims if the tech giant goes ahead with its plans to use Europeans' personal data to train its AI models. NOYB, or none of your business, is led by privacy activist Max Schrems. Meta plans to start using personal data from European users of Instagram and Facebook from May 27, citing legitimate interest under EU privacy rules for using users' data. The said data will be used to train and develop its generative AI models as well as other AI tools that can be shared with third parties. The company has said that users will receive a link to a form that will allow them to object to their data being used for training purposes. It also said that private messages and public data from accounts of users under the age of 18 will not be used. 'The European Court of Justice has already held that Meta cannot claim a 'legitimate interest' in targeting users with advertising. How should it have a 'legitimate interest' to suck up all data for AI training? We are currently evaluating our options to file injunctions, but there is also the option for a subsequent class action for non-material damages. If you think about the more than 400 million European Meta users who could all demand damages of just 500 euros or so, you can do the math.' NOYB said that it can use an EU rule filed under the EU Collective Redress, enabling consumers to pursue collective lawsuits against companies in the bloc. It set a May 21 deadline for Meta to respond. 'NOYB's arguments are wrong on the facts and the law. We've provided EU users with a clear way to object to their data being used for training AI at Meta, notifying them via email and in-app notifications that they can object at any time.' Overall, META ranks 1st on our list of AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. While we acknowledge the potential of META as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than META and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: and . Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at . Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Time of India
15-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Meta faces row over plan to use European data for AI
A Vienna-based privacy campaign group said Wednesday it has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta, after the tech giant announced plans to train its artificial intelligence models with European users' personal move comes after Meta said last month it would push ahead with plans to use personal data from European users of its Instagram and Facebook platforms for AI technology training from May 27, despite criticism over its legality. Meta has been hit with multiple privacy complaints in Europe, but cited a "legitimate interest" to process personal data for AI training. The privacy group, the European Center for Digital Rights -- also known as Noyb ("None of Your Business") -- threatened to file an injunction or class-action lawsuit against Meta if it does not halt plans. "Meta's absurd claims that stealing everyone's (personal) data is necessary for AI training is laughable," Noyb founder Max Schrems said in a statement. "Other AI providers do not use social network data -- and generate even better models than Meta," he added. When Meta AI first launched in the European Union in late March, the tech giant was at pains to point out that the chatbot was not trained on data from European users. Its rollout on the continent was delayed by more than a year as a result of overlapping European regulations on emerging technologies, including user data, AI and digital markets. Following the complaints, Meta temporarily put its AI plans on hold in June 2024, before recently announcing it would go ahead with them. "It is... totally absurd to argue that Meta needs the personal data of everyone that uses Facebook or Instagram in the past 20 years to train AI," Schrems said, adding the plans were "neither legal nor necessary". "Meta simply says that (its) interest in making money is more important than the rights of its users," he said, adding that users could simply be asked for their consent. With about 400 million estimated Meta users in Europe, the approval of 10 percent of them would "already clearly be sufficient" for AI language training and the like, Schrems said. Launched in 2018, Noyb has taken several court proceedings against technology giants, often prompting action from regulatory authorities.
Forbes
15-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Meta Accused Of Still Flouting Privacy Rules With AI Training Data
Meta's efforts to placate Europe over the use of personal data to train AI models hasn't worked, with privacy advocacy group noyb launching another challenge. After pausing AI training in the EE and European Economic Area last June, Meta last month announced plans to resume, using public posts and comments shared by adults and users' interactions with Meta AI. It had paused the training after concerns were expressed by the Irish Data Protection Commission and complaints filed with data protection authorities across the region. At the end of the year, the European Data Protection Board issued an opinion which, said Meta, meant it was complying with the law. "Last year, we delayed training our large language models using public content while regulators clarified legal requirements", the company said. "We welcome the opinion provided by the EDPB in December, which affirmed that our original approach met our legal obligations." However, nyob begs to disagree. "As far as we have heard, Meta has 'engaged' with the authorities, but this hasn't led to any 'green light'," said nyob chair Max Schrems. "It seems that Meta is simply moving ahead and ignores EU Data Protection Authorities." Nyob has now sent the firm a cease and desist letter, threatening a European class action as a next step. The company's claim that 'legitimate interest' allows it to use user data without explicit opt-in consent doesn't hold water, it said. "The European Court of Justice has already held that Meta cannot claim a 'legitimate interest' in targeting users with advertising. How should it have a 'legitimate interest' to suck up all data for AI training?" said Schrems. "While the 'legitimate interest' assessment is always a multi-factor test, all factors seem to point in the wrong direction for Meta. Meta simply says that its interest in making money is more important than the rights of its users." Nyob also claims that Meta may also be unable to comply with other GDPR rights such as the right to be forgotten, the right to have incorrect data rectified or users' rights to access to their data in an AI system. On top of this, it says, because Meta provides AI model as open-source software for anyone to download and use, it can't recall or update a model once it's published. Noyb compares Meta's practices over data collection for AI with its collection of user data to serve advertisements. On this, after a series of GDPR lawsuits, the company finally agreed in 2023 to give up on the legitimate interests argument, and require specific opt-in instead. "This fight is essentially about whether to ask people for consent or simply take their data without it. Meta starts a huge fight just to have an opt-out system instead of an opt-in system. Instead, they rely on an alleged 'legitimate interest' to just take the data and run with it," said Schrems. "This is neither legal nor necessary. Meta's absurd claims that stealing everyone's person data is necessary for AI training is laughable. Other AI providers do not use social network data—and generate even better models than Meta." Meta has been approached for comment.
The Hindu
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
Meta threatened with injunction over data-use for AI training; Google DeepMind unveils new AI agent; Amazon cuts jobs
Meta threatened with injunction over data-use for AI training An Austrian advocacy group NOYB is looking to obtain an injunction against Meta to prevent them from using personal data from EU users to train AI models. Max Schrems, a privacy activist who leads the 'None of your Business' group has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Meta which plans to start using personal data from European users on Instagram and Facebook from May 27. The company said that users will have a form so they can object to data usage while also saying that private messages and other public data from users under 18 years will be exempt. The group said that while they could file an injunction, they were also looking at alternatively filing a class action lawsuit for non-material damages. Meta has denied the group's allegations saying their actions comply with guidelines from the European Data Protection Board. The Mark Zuckerberg-led company has argued that EU users have been offered a way to opt out of the data usage. Google DeepMind unveils new AI agent Google DeepMind has announced a new AI agent called AlphaEvolve that can solve advanced computing and math problems while also solving real-life issues to increase efficiencies of data centers, chip design and AI training processes. The AI agent can also improve large language models including the one AlphaEvolve is based on. The agent can generate code powered by the Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model and then rank the code it has produced in terms of quality using a formula. AlphaEvolve then chooses the code that's important and works to improve them over multiple rounds by asking for suggestions constantly. The agent then moves on to using Gemini 2.0 Pro after it doesn't have anymore suggestions to give. The AI agent manages to reduce hallucinations using this technique which is still very common in even the advanced large language models. AlphaEvolve also improved the Tensor processing chips and removed some unnecessary parts from the chip's Verilog hardware description. Amazon cuts jobs Amazon has laid off 100 jobs in their devices and services unit which handles Kindle, Echo speakers, Alexa and the Zoox self-driving cars. The company said that the layoffs were regular and a part of their business review but didn't confirm the segments in which the layoffs occurred. The layoffs were done to streamline operations and align their product roadmap better, a company spokesperson said. On the other hand, Amazon added more than 4,000 jobs from last year's fourth quarter to this year's first as per their earnings report that was out this month. Last in 2023, the company cut job roles for Alexa and has been firing employees in small numbers from multiple businesses. Amazon has already announced an overhaul for Alexa shifting the voice assistant to integrate advanced AI technology. Chief exec Andy Jassy has said that he intends to reduce bureaucracy at the company and cut down the number of managers.
