Tech Gets Real

Europe’s attitude towards data retention – seeing it as mass surveillance anytime people’s information is indiscriminately collected and stored – may be changing, judging from a new opinion from the chief adviser to the EU’s highest court, the Court of Justice.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

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REFERENCES:

Digital Rights Ireland ruling https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/affair?sort=AFF_NUM-DESC&searchTerm=%2522C%252D293%252F12%2522&publishedId=C-293%2F12

Tele2 Sverige / Watson ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62015CJ0203

La Quadrature du Net I ruling https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/affair?lang=en&sort=AFF_NUM-DESC&searchTerm=%2522c%252D511%252F18%2522&publishedId=c-511%2F18

Irish Garda-Dwyer ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62020CJ0140

German SpaceNet ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62019CJ0793

La Quad II ruling https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:62021CJ0470

Szpunar’s opinion in the present case (Académie Fiscale) https://infocuria.curia.europa.eu/tabs/jurisprudence?sort=DOC_DATE-DESC&searchTerm=%2522C%252D661%252F24%2522&publishedId=C-661%2F24

We’re used to manufacturers leaving smart devices buggy or completely abandoning them for various reasons. But AI is now proving useful for reverse-engineering firmware – which clearly presents big cybersecurity risks as well as opportunities for taking real ownership of one’s own possessions – and new European laws also promise to force manufacturers to take longevity more seriously.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

To contact me, please email david@techgetsreal.com or connect on:

Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/superglaze.eurosky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@superglaze
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeyerwrites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeyer2/

REFERENCES:

The Guardian on European heatwave deaths https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/25/at-least-35000-excess-deaths-europe-back-to-back-heatwaves

Chaz Schlarp’s blogpost on reverse-engineering peripherals https://schlarp.com/posts/everything-i-own-owned/

Tech Radar on Spotify Car Thing’s revival https://www.techradar.com/audio/four-years-after-its-untimely-demise-spotify-car-thing-is-back-for-free-and-with-absolutely-no-help-from-the-streaming-giant-itself

Mira on GitHub https://github.com/mira-thing/mira-releases/releases#release-v1.1.0

European Commission on Right to Repair Directive https://commission.europa.eu/news-and-media/news/right-repair-new-consumer-rights-easy-and-attractive-repairs-2026-07-31_en

Cyber Resilience Act https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/cyber-resilience-act

My ISMG article on Cyber Resilience Act guidance https://www.bankinfosecurity.net/iot-sector-given-final-eu-cyber-resilience-act-guidance-a-32349

In the wake of OpenAI’s accidental hack of Hugging Face, over 1,000 luminaries from the AI industry have called for an international agreement on slowing down the pace of AI development – signatories include Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. That kind of deal is unlikely. But without it, unconstrained capitalism won’t allow any company to slow down unilaterally.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control at a time of rapid technological change. I'm Berlin-based tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

To contact me, please email david@techgetsreal.com or connect on:
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/superglaze.eurosky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@superglaze
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeyerwrites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeyer2/

REFERENCES:

Hugging Face post-mortem on OpenAI incident https://huggingface.co/blog/agent-intrusion-technical-timeline

Announcement of AI Kill Switch Act bill https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/reps-lieu-and-moran-introduce-bill-require-kill-switch-ai-systems-can

Pacing the Frontier petition https://www.pacingthefrontier.com/

Wikipedia article on previous call for an AI development pause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pause_Giant_AI_Experiments:_An_Open_Letter

Reuters on suspicious activity of OpenAI agents https://www.reuters.com/business/its-ai-agent-spent-days-hacking-company-sources-say-openai-did-not-notice-week-2026-07-24/

China’s AI companies have become a huge threat to their US rivals with their more open models, with the likes of Kimi K3, GLM-5.2 and Qwen 3.8 now almost rivalling Anthropic and OpenAI’s best efforts. The Trump administration will soon need to make a decision about how or whether to try to control those Chinese models and the open-source AI movement in general – and China will need to consider whether the many benefits of open AI are worth the risks.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change, presented from a European perspective. I'm veteran tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades. If you like this, please hit like and subscribe, and share it with others who might find it useful.

REFERENCES:

Reuters on US-China AI talks https://www.reuters.com/world/china/us-china-hold-ai-talks-september-sources-say-2026-07-21/

Hugging Face on its hacking incident https://huggingface.co/blog/security-incident-july-2026

The Diplomat on the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization https://thediplomat.com/2026/07/chinas-new-ai-club-the-world-artificial-intelligence-cooperation-organization/

Xi Jinping’s open AI speech http://english.scio.gov.cn/topnews/2026-07/18/content_118605932.html

Financial Times on China considering open AI controls https://www.ft.com/content/6049a031-9e9b-464c-97bb-414da04d5a6a?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Thinking Machines Lab on its Tinker release https://thinkingmachines.ai/news/introducing-inkling/

Ben Thompson’s Stratechery post on the US’s choices
https://stratechery.com/2026/whos-afraid-of-chinese-models/

David Sacks vs Dean Ball https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2078826291638522127

It looks like there will be EU-wide age restrictions for social media and other online services that might have content or designs that are unsuitable for kids. Some claim the European Commission is about to roll out an “internet passport” to enforce this, but that’s a misreading of the situation. Thanks to a major report that just landed, we are getting more details of what we really should expect from Europe’s online child safety crackdown.

Tech Gets Real is a show about staying in control in a time of rapid technological change, presented from a European perspective. I'm veteran tech journalist David Meyer, and I've been covering tech policy for two decades.

To contact me, please email david@techgetsreal.com or connect on:
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/superglaze.eurosky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@superglaze
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeyerwrites
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeyer2/

REFERENCES:

Ursula von der Leyen speech on age verification legislation https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_26_1590

Child safety online report https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/d833504d-5ec3-4fac-945f-38e7d0bd5326_en?filename=Special-panel-report.pdf

“Summary” of the report https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/4c5d55f1-9072-4bb9-a263-094461525ca6_en?filename=Child-Safety-Online-summary.pdf

Interface page on national age verification plans https://www.interface-eu.org/publications/social-media-age-gating-eu

Le Monde on European Commission chastising France https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/07/06/eu-tells-france-to-amend-social-media-ban-law_6755209_7.html

Euronews on viral “internet passport” claims https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/07/13/no-the-eu-is-not-about-to-censor-access-to-the-internet

Guardian on Australia exploring VPN restrictions https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/11/most-popular-porn-sites-now-have-age-checks-for-australians-but-online-watchdog-to-assess-vpn-loopholes