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EU Parliament Blocks AI Features Over Cyber, Privacy Fears (politico.eu) 47

An anonymous reader shares a report: The European Parliament has disabled AI features on the work devices of lawmakers and their staff over cybersecurity and data protection concerns, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO. The chamber emailed its members on Monday to say it had disabled "built-in artificial intelligence features" on corporate tablets after its IT department assessed it couldn't guarantee the security of the tools' data.

"Some of these features use cloud services to carry out tasks that could be handled locally, sending data off the device," the Parliament's e-MEP tech support desk said in the email. "As these features continue to evolve and become available on more devices, the full extent of data shared with service providers is still being assessed. Until this is fully clarified, it is considered safer to keep such features disabled."

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EU Parliament Blocks AI Features Over Cyber, Privacy Fears

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  • Good (Score:5, Insightful)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @05:35AM (#65993718)

    This should be the default on all devices. AI features should be a selectable add-on.

    • But why are they just now doing this?

      • by evanh ( 627108 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @07:00AM (#65993790)

        It's not like the apps have been around for long at all. Most of the general public freebie "AI" tools have been built as web based so far.

        • For comparison, I changed jobs (both in cybersecurity) within months of chatpgt being a thing, and to my recollection, both teams I was on quickly moved to block it completely. The first in the health care sector, the second in aerospace.

          Sure, government moves slower, but...this is waaay slower. As for when AI features started showing up on devices...where I'm at now, we never even allowed them to become a thing. As these were introduced, there has always been a means of administratively disabling them. In

      • by znrt ( 2424692 )

        probably to prevent accidental leaks of their dirty games. anyway, as the selective release of epstein manure has shown there is plenty of intentional leaking without ai being involved.

      • But why are they just now doing this?

        No governmental body can keep pace with technological change. Honestly, it's shocking that they've managed to react this quickly.

      • Because three quarters of people would disable AI on everything from day 1.

    • by jddj ( 1085169 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @09:53AM (#65994002) Journal

      There ought to be a "one switch" law: Cut off all on-device AI features with a single switch.

      If you want to pick and choose, use some, not others, OK, that's on you, you can't use the switch.

      But if you just want it all off, you shouldn't have to continuously pore through arcane and poorly-named menus looking to find where the tech bros have wormed it in, or turned it back on with an update.

      One switch. I want it off. All of it.

  • by Teun ( 17872 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @06:38AM (#65993768)
    I'm (presently) not interested in AI yet I just received a mail by OpenAI explaining a change in their privacy policy.

    I really wonder where they got my Email address and name...

  • by xack ( 5304745 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @09:06AM (#65993908)
    Microsoft and Apple can't be trusted to not bloat their OS with untested AI bloatware like CortanaClippyPilotBobSiri, Mandate that if companies want to work with the EU they need to disclose all their business practices and legislate out enshittificatuon and unvetted AI output that doesn't have a human in the loop.

    Linux needs to be treated like public civil engineering at this point, as private companies shouldn't be beta testing on the public. AI is the asbestos of the internet at this point, just shut this shit down.

    Yes this is a rant, but Microslop is wasting trillions of dollars on AI garbage.
  • Sensible move (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday February 17, 2026 @09:17AM (#65993936)
    Asking an AI, especially one from an adversary to assist you to summarize draft legislation or sort your email is just a terrible idea. It's about education more than anything else but there needs to be auditing and naming/shaming if someone decides the rules are for other people.
  • For that matter, stop using "Crypto" for everything too.

    There are too many things which begin with those roots.

    When I see "cyber" the first thing I think of is "wanna cyber?" Therefore any time someone says "cyber" it's unprofessional AF as I think "who the fuck is this baby child who doesn't know shit".

    • Cyber means of and relating to computers.

      Normal people don't sexualize everything, let alone have their head stuck in IRC circa 1996. The world stopped asking "ASL?" to every stranger they meet on the internet a very long time ago, it's time for you to catch up.

      • Normal people don't sexualize everything

        Oh look, in addition to all the other fucked up things about you, you're a puritan.

        • The reason you find it jarring that somebody would ever use cyber in a non-sexual context is because you do things like insert PCB headers, mice, and keyboards into your anus for pleasure. Thus, in your head and your head only, it's highly sexually charged.

          That one does not typically associate the word "cyber" with "sex" does not make one a puritan. It simply means that people have to watch their computer when you're around.

  • They should do a security analysis (including a technical analysis with traffic interception - SSL intercept) - like a pentest to verify which data is exfiltrated. Problem is that it's very time consuming and doesn't give warranty that future versions, after updates (which are frequent in such tools). Solutions such as SASE are needed to have a deep controls of the internet traffic and have a deep controls over Shadow IT (cause people don't ask permissions, they just use any free tools available).

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