digital economy regulation

Under the bill, terminal equipment should include a parental control function enabled by default when the device is set up for the first time. In addition, the age of consent to the processing of personal data by online providers would be raised from 14 to 16 years old.

This report gathers policy and regulatory developments at EU level covered by Cullen International’s Digital Economy and Media services during the last two weeks. It also lists events taking place this week.

The European Commission found that Apple breached its anti-steering obligations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and fined the company €500m. In a separate decision, the Commission fined Meta €200m as it found that the company’s “consent or pay” model was not compliant with the DMA requirements.

Stakeholders are invited to comment on the Commission’s preliminary approach to key aspects of its upcoming guidelines on general-purpose AI (GPAI) models. The guidelines will be published before the obligations for GPAI models in the AI Act start applying from August 2025.

The government plans to expand the scope of the 2018 Network and Information Systems Regulations to include additional entities, broaden the range of reportable cybersecurity incidents and introduce a two-tiered reporting timeframe. The bill would also grant enhanced enforcement and regulatory powers to the secretary of state.

While the EU executive body is now “carefully listening to co-legislators”, its proposal to withdraw the draft Artificial Intelligence Liability Directive (AILD) remains valid. Several members of the European Parliament strongly disagree with this decision, whereas others support the withdrawal.