The International Criminal Court (ICC) has received the EU’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Reacting to EU Parliament president Roberta Metsola’s announcement of the prize winner on Thursday (22 October), the Hague-based court said it is “thankful” for the recognition of the court and its officials.
“This award comes at a time when the court and its officials face unprecedented challenges, including sanctions aimed at disrupting the court’s judicial mandate,” ICC president judge Tomoko Akane told EUobserver in a statement.
The parliament’s recognition “underscores the importance of […] support to enable the Court to carry out its mandate independently and impartially, in the service of justice and the victims of the gravest crimes,” said the Japanese judge.
The court’s win comes after US president Donald Trump put his weight behind Israeli efforts to discredit the international judicial body by extending sanctions against it.
The ICC investigates and tries individuals charged with war and human-rights related crimes. When it issued an arrest warrant in 2024 for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, the US responded by sanctioning its judges.
EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the win, saying: “For victims of the world’s gravest crimes, justice means a voice. The ICC must be free to pursue its mission, independently, and without pressure or intimidation. Europe stands firmly behind president Tomoko Akane, the Court’s judges and officials, and their vital work for a world governed by rules.”
New sanctions against the court were announced by the Trump administration this month after the Nobel Peace Prize went to Navi Pillay, a former ICC judge who concluded in a UN report that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Tomoka said: “While this prize recognises the work of the court in combating impunity and ensuring fair trials, it is also an important recognition of the role of international justice as a cornerstone of lasting peace. In a world marked by rising conflicts, there is no peace without justice and no security without law.”
Strasbourg stands for justice
French MEP Chloé Ridel initiated the ICC’s nomination for the Sakharov Prize on behalf of the Socialists & Democrats parliament group.
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A high-ranking EU politician has gone on hunger strike over the humanitarian crisis in besieged Oleshky in Ukraine.
Pina Picierno, an Italian MEP and a vice-president in the EU parliament, told EUobserver she is refusing to eat solid food to draw attention to the besieged Ukrainian town.
Eight kilometres from Kherson, Oleshky is reported to now have 1,700 inhabitants, down from 24,000 people before Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The EU says the town is without access to food, medicine, clean water and basic care.
The only route to escape is tapped with mines and rife with attack drones, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha warned last Saturday (17 October).
Saying that Russia wants to make Oleshky a “death trap”, the Ukrainian minister urged the UN and International Red Cross to secure evacuation corridors and immediate humanitarian access to Oleshky.
“Families are starving, surviving on leftover garden vegetables, preserves and even snails,” he said.
Pope calls Putin over Oleshky
The Vatican has attempted to mediate, with Pope Leo calling last week for Russian president Vladimir Putin to arrange a humanitarian ceasefire to allow in aid.
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Offices of staff in the Patriots for Europe (PfE) group were raided in France and Belgium on Wednesday (21 October).
The European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) told EUobserver that searches were carried out “as part of an ongoing investigation into the use of European funds by a former political group in the European Parliament”.
But the law enforcement body said it would not release details of the investigation for now, to avoid jeopardising the integrity of the case.
The far-right PfE group in the European Parliament, led by Jordan Bardella of the French National Rally (RN) party, posted a statement on social media claiming that on Wednesday morning, the EPPO carried out searches in administrative offices at the European Parliament premises in Brussels and Strasbourg.
“It would appear that these searches are linked to the complaint lodged against the Identity and Democracy Group (ID) dissolved in 2024,” said PfE’s X post.
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The EU is pressing allies, such as the UK, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and Norway, to help close a €70bn shortfall in Ukraine’s funding for next year, after president Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the war will cost €155bn in 2027.
EU Council president António Costa told MEPs in Strasbourg on Wednesday (21 October) that member states already provided 80 percent of external aid to Ukraine and “international partners must also step up their efforts”.
“Our commitment to peace must go hand in hand with sustained pressure on the aggressor,” he also said, after meeting Zelensky at an EU summit in Brussels last week.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also told MEPs on Wednesday: “The war will not be decided on the frontline; the war will be decided in our political will, in whether we stand up for freedom and democracy and support our Ukrainian friends.”
Zelensky’s €155bn figure refers to Ukraine’s total war-related spending in 2027, part of which Kyiv covers from its own budget.
But that still left a €70bn gap that Ukraine needed foreign partners to fill, as next year approached.
The EU has already agreed a €90bn loan covering 2026 and 2027, meant to meet two-thirds of Ukraine’s financing needs over that period.
The remaining third was supposed to come from other partners, but so far that money has been secured only for 2026, not for 2027.
Costa told MEPs on Wednesday that €16bn had been disbursed this year under the defence line of the loan, while another €17bn could be sent to Ukraine if anti-corruption reforms were implemented.
“Our determination to support Ukraine and its people is stronger than ever,” he said.
EU hopes for Ukraine cash from allies
Meanwhile, EU commissioner Maroš Šefčovič also indicated on Monday that Britain will be asked to increase funding to Ukraine, speaking ahead of an EU-UK summit on 20 November.
“Following the signature of a contribution agreement on 13 July 2026, the UK can now participate under the EU’s €90bn Ukraine support loan,” he said.
Both the EU and UK would support Ukraine “as long as it takes to bring Russia’s illegal war of aggression to an end”, Šefčovič added.
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A diverse array of MEPs on Tuesday (20 October) expressed their enthusiasm for the UK ‘correcting the mistake’ of Brexit by rejoining the European Union 10 years after its people narrowly voted to leave.
“Trump, Xi and Putin might form a troika of iliberalism standing in defiance of the achievements of liberal democracy”, warned Barry Andrews, an Irish MEP for Renew, saying that the EU should not treat the United Kingdom “like any other third country”.
His party ally Sandro Gozi, an Italian MEP, added: “Every option must be on the table, from a special partnership to full EU membership.”
The debate on EU-UK relations in the Strasbourg parliament came a month ahead of a highly-anticipated EU-UK summit in Brussels on 20 November.
Although the UK rejoining the bloc is still a distant prospect, it is back on the agenda because of new prime minister Andy Burnham.
Brexit had “done more harm than good”, Burnham told delegates at the Labour party conference in late September, adding that “we will not give Britain the clear path we need into the rest of the century until we decide on a long-term relationship with what is still our largest market.”
Britain could “go all the way” back into the EU, added Burnham.
European parliament president Robert Metsola has given an open invitation for Burnham to address MEPs, her office told EUobserver, in another sign of goodwill.
The UK Treasury, meanwhile, is expected to publish a study in the coming days detailing the scale of the hit to the UK economy from leaving the bloc.
Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer, who resigned in July primarily because of dismal opinion poll ratings, had promised a ‘reset’ of EU-UK relations when his government took power in July 2024. But apart from rhetoric, little has changed, though the UK now has access to the Erasmus+ student exchange programme.
Brexit is a “mistake that can be corrected by all of us” and admitting it is “a sign of strength”, said German Green MEP Terry Reintke.
New deals agreed should be “the floor and not the ceiling” of bilateral relations, said David McAllister, a German MEP for the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP).
On the right, Polish MEP for the European Conservatives and Reformists Jadwiga Wiśniewska also welcomed new talks with the UK, calling for them to be based on “concrete elements” like agriculture deals, defence and Erasmus+.
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The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been shortlisted for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, an annual human-rights award from the European Parliament.
The announcement on Monday (19 October) comes after US president Donald Trump put his weight behind Israeli efforts to discredit the international judicial body by extending sanctions against it.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant in 2024 for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, as well as other senior Israeli officials and Hamas. The US then responded by targeting its judges by impeding their day-to-day activities such as banking.
New sanctions against the court were announced by the US administration this month after the Nobel Peace Prize went to Navi Pillay, a former ICC judge who wrote a UN report concluding Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The ICC court labelled the move as an “assault on the rule of law” and called on countries to step up to protect it.
Sakharov Prize finalists named
Members of the EU parliament’s foreign affairs committee shortlisted the ICC and its members for the Sakharov Prize.
Named after the Soviet nuclear scientist dissident Andrei Sakharov, the award has been previously awarded to the likes of Iranian protest icon Mahsa Amini and to the Ukrainian people enduring Russia’s attacks.
“We stand by the ICC and its officials, and we are committed to safeguarding its work,” said Yannis Maniatis, Greek MEP for the Socialists & Democrats group which nominated the ICC for the award. “If the aggressors become the victims, and if we stand by helplessly as international justice erodes, we risk allowing those who believe themselves above the law to prevail.”
Tundu Lissu, a Tanzanian opposition figure in court for inciting the public to disrupt an election and facing the possibility of death row, is also a Sakharov Prize finalist. “There is no doubt about the political nature of his detention,” said David McAllister, MEP for the European People’s Party who co-nominated Lissu.
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European Council president António Costa gets to work this week rewriting the EU’s seven-year budget, after the bloc’s leaders binned the long-term plan proposed by the Irish council presidency last week.
The budget will be debated by MEPs at the plenary in Strasbourg on Wednesday (21 October), when European Parliament will also vote to allocate €47bn for Erasmus+ instead of the €40bn planned on Thursday (22 October).
A separate vote on Wednesday (21 October) will decide parliament’s position on the EU’s short-term 2027 budget, when MEPs will decide whether or not to ask for €2.7bn more than what council proposed in summer, with extra monies proposed for expanding Erasmus+, agriculture and responding to climate disaster.
Further, MEPs will also decide on disbursing €489m to Mediterranean member states ravaged by storms and flooding, and €1.1m to retrain hundreds of workers laid off in Finland’s paper industry cuts – both on Wednesday (21 October).
This comes after last week in Brussels, where national leaders at their summit binned a long-term budget proposed by the Irish Council presidency. While most wanted to keep budget headroom, a minority of big spending countries wanted to save cash. So while European Council president Antonio Costa gets to work rewriting the 2028-2034 funding plan, MEPs will also make their views on the matter clear.
A debate will also ensue on Tuesday (20 October) on how to respond to escalating Russian provocations off Bulgarian and Romanian coasts where drones have repeatedly violated EU airspace, followed by a vote on Thursday (22 October). MEPs will also ask the commission to explain why it decided to unlock sanctions on luxury Russian furs shortly after it imposed them.
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Britain is expected to push for a new post-Brexit trade deal and increased information-sharing on immigration at a UK-EU summit in Brussels next month.
This comes as Andy Burnham, the country’s prime minister, says the post-Brexit “status quo is not good enough for Britain”, in a hint that he might seek to rejoin the European Union.
And, more than a decade after the Brexit vote, he also accused Russia of having meddled in the 2016 British referendum.
The UK leader will meet European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa in Brussels on 20 November.
And Costa has also said that European and British security and prosperity are “closely intertwined”, while a closer relationship could “promote stability in Europe and beyond”.
Made in Europe and immigration
The November summit will be an opportunity to “raise concerns” about ‘Made in Europe,’ Burnham told members of UK MPs on Monday (12 October).
The ‘Made in Europe’ proposal in the Industrial Accelerator Act would require companies to source a certain number of parts from within the EU to be eligible for public money in strategic sectors.
But UK officials are worried the law could hurt British manufacturers, with Burnham expected to seek concessions.
But the British premier also wants to go further in renegotiating his country’s ties with the EU.
“On the table is a trade deal on food and drink products, a deal on emissions trading, progress towards linking our energy systems, a new youth experience scheme, and deeper cooperation on immigration,” he said.
Burnham aims to address an EU import ban on UK meat, seed potatoes, and shellfish and wants to reduce costs for shipping other goods to mainland Europe.
He also hopes for closer work between European and UK border forces on immigration.
“On immigration, we could link up our law enforcement efforts once again [since brexit], sharing more data and criminal records of foreign nationals,” Burnham said.
He may aim to rejoin the Schengen Information System, a database for border management and law enforcement cooperation in Europe.
And he could also pursue greater freedoms for UK citizens to live in the 27 member states.
“It would be a major dereliction of duty to turn away [from the EU]” the UK leader told parliament.
10 years on from Brexit vote
The last EU-UK summit, held in London in 2025, was already branded as a reset in relations across the English channel, with a new defence and security partnership, reciprocal access to fishing waters, and expansion of student exchanges.
And leaders are expected to build on the previous agreements by discussing defence, energy, and climate, as well as trade and migration, at their meeting next month.
But under the terms of the EU and UK’s legal divorce in 2020, the two sides remain bound by complex limitations.
And Burnham told MPs on Monday that renegotiating Britain’s relations with the EU could add over £10bn (€11.8bn) per year to the UK economy by 2040, “with the potential to add significantly more,” even if it did not rejoin.
Russian meddling?
Burnham also told a podcast on 11 October that Russia had meddled in the country’s Brexit vote 10 years ago.
Upon assuming office in July, Burnham asked officials if there had been Russian interference in the 2016 referendum, he told The Rest is Politics, and officials gave him a “clear answer that yes, there was.”
“We haven’t informed people [the general public] sufficiently,” he added, amid similar Russian electoral interference in France, Germany, and further afield in Europe.
For his part, British foreign secretary Stephen Doughty subsequently told the LBC broadcaster: “I don’t think [Russia] succeeded in their efforts to undermine our election”.
And Burnham also rowed back in the parliament debate on Monday when pressed by opposition MPs, by saying the outcome of the Brexit vote remained legitimate.
But he added that Russia’s meddling in the UK’s 2019 general election was a matter of record and that it was “inconceivable that this was the first time”.
Appetite for EU re-entry
Burnham also dropped hints on Monday that Britain could rejoin the European Union.
“One thing I think is true is that public opinion has moved more quickly than political opinion. I think the political class is behind the public on this issue,” he said.
“At every stage, the British public will be the boss,” he added, while promising a “pragmatic approach” to the hot-button issue, which has the potential to enflame right-wing anger in England.
“We need to draw a line on a decade of drift and division [from Europe],” he said.
But questions of a holding second referendum were “jumping ahead too far” according to Burnham.
The Westminster debate came after YouGov polling commissioned by Best for Britain, a pro-EU lobby group, indicated that pushing for closer EU ties would be politically advantageous for Burnham’s ruling Labour party.
The organisation also claimed Britain could reenter the union within five years.
Brexit was “not a sacred cow”, said Emily Thornberry, a fellow Labour MP, on Monday.
Sandro Gozi, an Italian liberal MEP and chair of the UK-EU parliamentary partnership assembly, also said in a statement: “As a former member, and with much of the regulatory framework already in place, I personally do not see any serious reason why an application from the UK would not be achievable.”
“When countries are already closely aligned to EU rules, such as was the case for Sweden and Finland, the process for accession is faster than for applicants essentially starting from scratch,” he said.
More than half of Europeans believe hens should no longer be caged, according to new data released on Tuesday (13 October).
And 75 percent of Europeans wanted the last hen in the EU out of its cage by 2035 at the latest, according to a poll conducted by Savanta on behalf of Humánny pokrok, an animal rights non-profit.
Pollsters asked 25,080 adults across 25 member states for their views on keeping hens in cages.
The results show that 16 percent of people were not sure when or if putting hens in cages should be banned, while 7 percent of Europeans supported hen-caging until at least 2045.
The survey comes five years after 1.4 million citizens signed the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to ‘End the Cage Age’ and the European Parliament voted to endorse it.
‘Now is the time’
“This data shows millions of Europeans care about animal welfare,” said Barry Andrews, an Irish Renew MEP.
“Over 1.4 million signed the ECI, which was also supported by MEPs. Now is the time for the Commission to finally make a legislative proposal,” he added.
The delay in tabling legislation came after Copa Cogeca, a farming lobby group, insisted that banning hen cages could take up to 15 years.
But the new data says 52 percent of Europeans wish a hen cage ban was already in place.
The country most supportive of a hen cage ban was Austria, where 65 percent of people believed the last hen should have already left its cage, and 2 percent said cages for hens should never be banned.
Thomas Waitz, an Austrian Greens-group MEP, said an EU ban on animal cages is “long overdue” and urged Olivér Várhelyi, commissioner for health and animal welfare, to deliver an “ambitious timeline”.
“This long period of indecision is not just an affront to the European consumers who want better Animal Welfare, it also harms European farmers and producers who need reliable information for their investments,” Waitz said.
In Bulgaria, the member state which polled as least supportive, 33 percent of people believed the last hen should have already left its cage whereas 9 percent said cages should never be banned.
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A new law aimed at protecting children could kill off old video games and threaten small developers, industry trade groups have warned.
The EU Kids Act was unveiled by commission president Ursula von der Leyen last month as a chance to “give childhood back to our children” and put parents “in the driving seat”.
It would require videogames to be catered to children by default with stringent requirements including an eight-hour nighttime lock-out, a ban on screenshots, and guardian supervision.
Gamers wanting to play the full version of games would have to pass age verification checks to access features, like multi-player tournaments or mystery boxes.
The European Commission is gathering feedback on the act with respondents quick to criticise the threat posed to videogame makers.
Stop Killing Games, a campaign to protect videogames, has opposed the act.
“This could turn the EU into a pariah state for videogames,” said Ross Scott, the consumer group’s founder. He reckons the regulation could spark a race to update games or deactivate them.
MEPs have also joined in sounding the alarm bell.
Proposed law could kill games
If the law passed, developers would need to make a child mode version of games and gate the full games behind a verification step.
“This is going to bury developers with compliance steps, and a whole lot of cost,” said Scott.
Age verification with zero-knowledge proof (meaning developers cannot collect data) will likely be required. “In practice, providers would likely need to engage a third-party age assurance provider,” also said Lauro Fava, partner at law firm Pinsent Masons.
The Commission’s impact assessment claims that third-party age verification apps would reduce costs, but failed to provide estimates.
Fava called it “strange” that these were missing, and thinks the commission “arguably downplayed” the cost of compliance.
Gamer’s Voice, an advocacy group, asserted that small games would struggle to pay for age-verification and other compliance measures, likely to inlclude game redesigns.
The Kids Act would outlaw features ‘increasing social comparison’ for minors, meaning functions like leaderboards and kill counts could be restricted.
And while the cost to developers is not known, it is feared prices could increase for players.
The wide scope of the draft law means community servers and hobbyist-developed games could be subjected to the new rules. Any game, new or old, would have to follow measures unless strictly offline in a physical format or built only for educational purposes.
And since the rules would apply to games made or consumed in the EU, it is feared game makers could block access to their games on the bloc.
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The European Commission has proposed up to 15 years of post-accession safeguards to punish new member states in case of bad behaviour, in a long-delayed pre-enlargement policy review out on Tuesday (6 October).
The reforms were initially requested by the European Council in June 2024 to be ready by spring 2025, but were delayed several times due to political sensitivities in EU capitals.
They are aimed at frontrunners for future EU membership – Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine – each of whom will get an accession roadmap this month.
EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has deemed union enlargement a “geopolitical imperative” amid the war in Ukraine and shift towards a new global order.
By expanding, the EU hopes to promote democracy and strengthen the single market.
But this also comes with fears that countries could misbehave after getting in, prompting the commission’s proposed new guardrails.
The commission suggests that new member states promise “not to oppose EU decisions on future enlargements” due “to bilateral disputes” for an unspecified time.
But Marta Kos, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, said this commitment would be voluntary.
Commissioner dismisses ‘two-tier’ concerns
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EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič and Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao are meeting in Beijing on Thursday (8 October) to discuss China’s growing trade surplus with the EU.
The surplus reached a record €360.6bn in 2025, up 15 percent from 2024, and widened another 10 percent in the first four months of this year.
The visit follows a meeting in Brussels in June, where Šefčovič said he wanted the dialogue to deliver tangible results by October, and the two sides set up working groups on trade balance, export controls, intellectual property and WTO reform. China has sent mixed signals, with Beijing reportedly showing openness to purchase agreements for European goods and possibly lower tariffs, while China’s commerce ministry insisted Brussels should not treat China as the source of the EU’s problems.
The EU put tariffs on Chinese electric cars in 2024, with extra duties ranging from 7.8 percent to 35.3 percent depending on the manufacturer. But hybrids weren’t covered, and Chinese hybrid exports to the EU jumped from 3,800 vehicles in October 2024 to roughly 50,000 in July 2026, adding to pressure on European carmakers already struggling to compete with Chinese manufacturers.
Šefčovič will also be hoping to secure assurances from his Chinese counterpart on access to rare earths and minerals for European companies, with a one-year moratorium on extra restrictions on rare earth and minerals exports from China – which also applies to the United States – due to expire in the coming weeks. In June, China assured Šefčovič that existing controls on rare earths and permanent magnets would not disrupt EU supply chains.
Meanwhile, there have been reports of some German companies stockpiling rare earths in case the Šefčovič-Wentao talks fail to break the deadlock and China imposes new export controls in retaliation for the EU’s ‘Made in Europe’ plan to protect its industrial supply chain.
If the Beijing talks fail, Germany and France could push for tougher measures at next week’s EU leaders’ summit, including a cap on Chinese hybrid-car exports, preference for European vehicles in public procurement and tighter limits on Chinese takeovers of European companies.
But China recently said it would “respond firmly” if the EU imposed restrictions on Chinese businesses or products.
Long-delayed accession reforms
In Strasbourg on Tuesday (6 October), the European Commission is expected to present its long-delayed pre-enlargement policy reviews to prepare the 27-nation bloc for the integration of candidate countries like Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova.
EU capitals fear that enlargement could disrupt businesses and that new member states could use their veto to block decisions.
In response, the commission proposal is set to rely less on consensus and more on majority voting, including in sensitive areas such as security and defence, sanctions, human rights and enlargement itself – a change that could help speed up bids such as Ukraine’s.
Ironically, to get rid of unanimity in certain votes, von der Leyen’s proposal will need the unanimous approval of all 27 member states.
The text is also expected to set temporary limits on new members’ vetoes, longer safeguard periods, and cut the number of commissioners to two-thirds of the number of member states, with equal rotation.
Alongside the internal rules review, the commission is expected to unveil a revision of the standardisation regulation to fix gaps and increase transparency.
On Monday (5 October), EU chief diplomat Kaja Kallas will host Moldovan PM Vasile Tofan in Brussels for a regular meeting on the progress of the country’s association bid.
The Eurogroup will also meet on Thursday in Luxembourg while EU financial ministers will meet on Friday.
On Wednesday, they will debate priorities for the EU budget for 2028-2034 (the Multiannual Financial Framework – MFF) with signals of more money for Erasmus+.
And MEPs will vote on Tuesday on whether to inject €115m into a pilot programme to accelerate the development of military technologies called Agile. This comes as Putin escalates hybrid warfare against Europe.
Controversy is expected ahead of a vote to scrutinise the funding and political influence of Islamist groups in Europe. European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) have previously called for the Muslim Brotherhood to be considered terrorists.
Those feeling stressed in their jobs can look forward to mental health protections for workers if parliament votes to ask the commission to propose new rules for EU employers.
Portuguese prime minister Luís Montenegro will deliver a speech on Tuesday.
And a debate with Ursula von der Leyen and the Irish Council presidency will shape priorities for the EU summit later this month, 15-16 October.
Plenary talks will also address the migrant surge in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta this summer and how Europe should respond.
Six out of nine of the most popular AI chatbots routinely exposed user input to third parties, new European research reveals.
Multiple chatbots disclosed sensitive user data to advertising companies through trackers – a piece of code used to identify and target users on the web with customised advertisements, which are widely used across the web.
And tech companies may have been able to link conversation summaries with personal identifiers, allowing users to be targeted based on their conversations with AI.
The researchers aimed to establish the connection between existing tracking technologies and AI advertising. “We basically connected the dots, and wanted to test whether and how AI bots integrate tracking and advertising services,” said Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, who led the study.
Vallina-Rodriguez is part of a group of researchers who investigated the use of ad trackers in the most popular AI providers with colleagues at Imdea Networks, a public research institute in Madrid.
Their findings warn of “tensions” between tech company practices and obligations to users under privacy laws.
Sensitive user-data shared
“We already knew that tracking is pervasive, even without AI. But now you have the most super-invasive phenomena on the internet, which is AI,” said Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal, a policy adviser at digital rights group Edri.
Users often share information about their health, psychological state, finances, and other intimate matters in AI prompts. The study shows how users who asked AI questions about such matters could have sensitive details summarised in a chat title shared with third parties.
“Now, big tech has access to much more intimate information which users tell AI. It’s crazy, the details are so intimate. My friends ask AI bots about relationships, or they use ‘doctor AI’,” said Domínguez de Olazábal.
GDPR rules require companies to make clear how users’ data is harvested, but researchers question “ambiguous expressions” used to explain the role of trackers in T&Cs.
And the ePrivacy directive requires users to consent to cookies unless they are “strictly necessary”, but researchers found that even when users rejected non-essential cookies, AI bots Perplexity, DeepSeek, Gemini, Copilot, ChatGPT and Claude still connected to Google Ads.
All of the top nine most popular chatbots were found to integrate at least one third-party advertising or tracking service.
Consent and transparency ‘shortcomings’
A preview of the study, released in May, prompted the Spanish privacy watchdog AEPD to request for the European Data Protection Committee (EPDC) to share preliminary findings with European counterparts “for knowledge and assessment”.
The final paper, titled ‘Prompt like a Butterfly, Sting like a Tracker’, has been accepted for publication at an academic forum in Delft next year.
Findings “highlight tensions between current practices and obligations under the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive, exposing broader shortcomings in consent, access control, and transparency mechanisms,” the paper reads.
It reveals that Grok, operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, exposed public links to conversations by default, allowing trackers to routinely access whole conversations, with TikTok also processing screenshots of Grok conversations.
Meanwhile, Mistral, France’s flagship AI firm, did not offer users a choice to reject non-essential cookies.
But offering such a choice might soon be redundant anyway. “The tracking industry is moving towards paradigms called cookie-less and identity-based tracking. So they are circumventing anti-tracking capabilities,” Vallina-Rodriguez told EUobserver.
One way, or another …
Some suggest that using browsers with anti-tracker technologies can help users avoid surveillance.
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As AI-powered biometric identification is adopted by police, national authorities should go beyond legal requirements to build trust within the public, a watchdog report has advised.
“To build public trust, law enforcement should publish the results of their fundamental rights impact assessments, going beyond what the AI Act requires,” said the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), an EU branch which keeps tabs on citizens’ freedoms, in Vienna on Wednesday (30 September).
After collecting data from seven EU countries (France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, and Ireland), the watchdog warned that several member states have yet to put necessary frameworks in place as they adopt automated systems to identify people.
Remote biometric identification is increasingly used to compare people’s profiles against databases or watch lists, but as the technology develops it could be rolled out for real-time use in public areas.
“With clear safeguards and independent oversight, remote biometric technologies can support policing without undermining the very freedoms it is meant to safeguard. Ultimately, it is about trust,” said FRA chief Sirpa Rautio.
Call for disclosure mechanisms
Effective implementation of the EU AI Act requires clear national laws and consistent safeguards to ensure that AI-powered technologies are not used to identify people taking part in peaceful demonstrations or public gatherings, the FRA says.
The body warns that automated identification of live data may affect people’s private lives and interfere with their right to protection of personal data.
In its survey, 37 percent of people said they fear their data could be used for unauthorised purposes.
And 29 percent of people surveyed by FRA said they would be less willing to take part in peaceful demonstrations or protests if facial recognition was used.
The FRA is worried that surveillance tech powered by AI could be used in exactly those scenarios.
In principle, the EU’s AI Act adopted in 2024 bans real-time remote biometric identification systems in public spaces. But exemptions exist for law enforcement authorities using the technology for finding victims or missing persons, to prevent threats to life or physical safety, stop a terror attack, or to find criminal suspects.
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The European Commission is being pressed to deliver an animal cage ban by 2027 after failing to meet previous commitments.
Several hundred animal rights activists gathered at the EU’s office for health and food safety in Brussels on Monday (28 September) to encourage a ban on poultry cages and on the killing of male chicks.
The commission’s livestock strategy had committed in July to proposing legislation to outlaw the two practices by the end of 2026, with similar legislation on pig welfare expected to follow by mid-2027.
The legislation stems from a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) signed by 1.4 million people in 2021 to ‘End the Cage Age’. A vast majority of MEPs also subsequently voted to endorse the transition to improved animal welfare.
And while the commission had originally promised to table a proposal by 2024, this was derailed by farming lobbies and the deadline elapsed.
“We are here [at Monday’s protest in Brussels] because the EU has been delaying meaningful reforms for animals for years,” said Ombretta Alessandrini from Animal Equality, which organised the rally.
Ombretta Alessandrini is campaign manager at Animal Equality. (Source: EUobserver)
“Our democratic ask needs to be respected. We feel betrayed by the EU’s broken promises and we want the commission to do what they say,” she told EUobserver.
Animal Equality has also joined legal action against the commission over its broken promises, in a case examined at the European Court of Justice in March.
The commission is legally obliged to respond to a citizens’ initiative once it reaches 1m or more signatures.
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