European Parliament disables native AI on issued devices over privacy fears

According to The Next Web, the European Parliament has instructed its IT department to disable built in, cloud based AI features on Parliament issued tablets and smartphones, citing unresolved data security and privacy concerns. The internal memo also told Members of the European Parliament to review AI settings on personal devices, reflecting a precautionary approach that follows the 2023 TikTok ban and the 2024 EU Artificial Intelligence Act.

What Parliament did and how it works

The instruction affects native features such as writing assistants, automatic summaries and virtual assistants that rely on cloud processing. Parliament IT implemented the change on institutionally managed hardware, removing access to those cloud powered features centrally rather than leaving configuration to individual users. The memo warned that some third party AI functions may "scan or analyze content," a phrase used to justify the restriction and to prompt staff to clean up permissions on apps they use personally.

This is an operational decision inside one EU institution, enforced by the Parliament's IT department through device configuration controls. It does not alter the EU AI Act itself, which has been in force since 2024 and already imposes transparency, traceability and oversight obligations on AI systems. However, the Parliament's move demonstrates how those regulatory requirements can translate into concrete institutional policy, with immediate technical controls replacing open ended trust in third party providers.

What this means for procurement, vendors and users

The Parliament's action increases scrutiny in institutional procurement. Contracting officers and IT buyers will likely demand demonstrable data handling guarantees before deploying cloud based AI tools on managed devices. That creates opportunity for vendors who can offer processing on device, verifiable logging and European based hosting. For example, teams that currently rely on Microsoft cloud productivity tools and their integrated assistants may face new procurement hurdles in EU institutions unless those vendors can provide auditable, regionally segregated data processing.

For vendors, the tension is clear: convenience and powerful cloud models versus the need to prevent uncontrolled cross border data flows. For end users at the Parliament, convenience will be reduced in the short term as helpers that produced quick summaries or draft messages are turned off. For IT teams across EU institutions, the move sets a precedent for combining legal obligations under the AI Act with conservative, security first device configuration.

Why This Matters

For organisations choosing between US cloud AI features and European or on device alternatives, this is a practical signal that institutional customers will prioritise provable data controls. A communications team that uses Microsoft 365 with Copilot like features should now treat vendor assurances about data isolation as a procurement requirement rather than a nice to have. Conversely, organisations can reduce risk by favouring on device models or European model hosting platforms such as Hugging Face for model management and DeepL for translations, when those meet functional needs and compliance constraints.

Audit your AI settings and data permissions on work and personal devices, and demand contract clauses that allow verification of how models access and store content. The Parliament's choice shows that legal compliance combined with operational controls can tip the balance away from default cloud convenience and toward vendors that support auditable, localised processing.

Watch for follow up guidance from the Parliament's IT department and possible extensions of the restrictions to other EU institutions, together with updated procurement rules that translate the AI Act's obligations into vendor selection criteria.

Sources

The Next Web