Blog

OpenAI and Anthropic beef up customer data confidentiality for frontier models, but details lacking It looks like I’m not isolated in thinking a lot about ways in which AI services can be provided not only securely, but also confidentially—even vis-à-vis the service provider (see my AI privilege and ChatGPT encryption, Trustworthy privacy for AI: Apple’s and Meta’s TEEs, and Meta AI’s Incognito Chat: a new bar for confidential AI).

Last month, I argued that the Digital Omnibus risked giving even more control over the GDPR to privacy regulators whose interpretations created our current problems (EU Digital Omnibus Hands the Wheel to the Referee).

According to the Silicon Valley creed, artificial intelligence will cause the near future to be weird. In what way? This is often left a bit vague. Perhaps the cybersecurity capabilities of Anthropic’s Mythos model count as an early manifestation of the impending weirdness.

On 27 May 2026, after delays, the European Commission is expected to propose the Cloud and AI Development Act (CAIDA), the centrepiece of its Tech Sovereignty package. In a new ICLE policy brief published this week, I argue that a strict version of CAIDA pushed by some stakeholder would impose most of its costs on European users.

Meta has launched Incognito Chat with Meta AI, a way to talk to an AI assistant on WhatsApp and the Meta AI app under privacy guarantees that, as Mark Zuckerberg puts it, are “similar to how end-to-end encryption means no one can read your conversations, even Meta or WhatsApp.

Now that I’m emerging from a slower period of paternity leave, you can expect more regular programming. Today, I’m sharing an edited excerpt from my latest comments on the planned GDPR reform.

The European Commission and the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) are preparing guidelines on the interplay of the Digital Markets Act with the EU’s main privacy law - the General Data Protection Regulation (the GDPR).

I joined Eric Seufert again on the Mobile Dev Memo podcast to talk about the European Commission’s newly unveiled “digital omnibus” package and what it means for the GDPR, AI, cookies, and the broader competitiveness debate in Europe.

“Europe is so back. No more cookie banners.” Alas, no. Cookie banners are staying. But the banner is just an irritating symbol of the fact that European politicians can’t quite muster the will to do the hard things we need.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman has been publicly floating the idea of “AI privilege,” a form of legal confidentiality to protect interactions between users and AIs. According to Altman: “We should apply as much protection as when you talk to … your human doctor or your human lawyer, as you do when you talk to your AI doctor or AI lawyer.