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Stichting Open Future

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Open Future is a think tank that develops new approaches to an open internet that maximize societal benefits of shared data, knowledge and culture.

Lobbying Activity

Meeting with Emmanuelle Du Chalard (Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology)

9 Oct 2025 · Exchange of views on the development of a vocabulary for TDM opt out and AI preferences

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament) and European Digital Rights and Superrr Lab SL gGmbH

30 Sept 2025 · Event: Privacy Camp

Response to European Data Union Strategy

18 Jul 2025

Please see the enclosed submission to the consultation.
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Response to Cloud and AI Development Act

3 Jul 2025

Open Future welcomes the opportunity to provide its feedback to the call for evidence for the EU Cloud and AI Development Act. Please find our response in the attached document. In our response, we focus on two aspects that we see as essential to the development of AI and Cloud infrastructure that supports the European Unions policy ambitions: requirements related to procurement and sustainability. On procurement, we argue that public funds should be used to support cloud infrastructure that is open, interoperable, and governed under EU law. This means prioritising providers that adopt open standards, ensure data portability, and avoid vendor lock-in. Procurement rules should also recognise open source solutions and smaller-scale providers as viable options when they meet functional and governance criteria, rather than defaulting to dominant commercial providers. On sustainability, we stress the need for binding requirements around environmental transparency, resource use, and climate alignment. Infrastructure expansion must be consistent with EU climate targets, and planning processes should include public participation and assessment of local impact. Finally, we support the introduction of a regulatory instrument (Option 3) to establish common, binding standards for procurement and sustainability. Without this, there is a risk of fragmented implementation and missed opportunities to align infrastructure investment with public interest objectives.
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Response to Apply AI Strategy

4 Jun 2025

Integrating AI technologies in the public sector and leading industrial sectors must prioritize the development of sovereign, European AI infrastructure, and reduce the dependence on foreign technologies. This means that the strategy needs to include the development and support for public digital infrastructures for AI. This integration needs to happen in a purposeful manner, especially in sensitive sectors like public education or health. There are few prior examples of evidence of the positive impact of AI on these spheres of life, and deployment of AI cannot be guided just by a vision of productivity gains. The strategy should consider the risk of rushed deployment, and of large public investments going to private actors best positioned to meet the promise of swift deployment without clear public benefits. Below, we outline three principles that should underpin the strategy. Attached, please find a white paper on public AI, which outlines this approach in more detail. 1. The Apply AI strategy should support and use public AI infrastructure. With AI Factories and the AI Continent initiatives, Europe aims to build parts of a public AI stack that includes computing power, data resources and open source models. Apply AI should support the deployment of AI systems based on these elements, which are sovereign and serve the public interest. The strategy should be based on a vision of fostering an ecosystem of AI solutions built using European open source models and benefitting from investments in public computing power. Investments in AI capabilities are needed to ensure that there is sufficient talent in the various sectors, where AI solutions will be deployed. Detailed recommendations for creating a public AI stack can be found in the attached white paper or online at https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/publikationen/publikation/did/public-ai-white-paper-a-public-alternative-to-private-ai-dominance . 2. Apply AI needs to support purposeful AI deployment. European investments in digital transformation often favor industry-focused, technology-driven projects while paying less attention to problem-oriented approaches and addressing societal needs. The Apply AI strategy should avoid a vision of technological disruption and sole focus on productivity gains, especially for public sector initiatives. Instead, integration of AI technologies needs to address pressing societal needs, and foster technologies that genuinely serve communities across Europe. By taking a more discerning, realistic view of emerging technologies, EU funding could avoid techno-solutionism and instead prioritize initiatives that meet genuine needs and produce tangible value. This also means balancing industry support with public value objectives. Finally, capacity needs to be built especially in the public sector so that various organizations and institutions can play an active role in shaping how AI technologies are deployed. See our policy brief The Digital innovation we need: https://openfuture.eu/publication/the-digital-transformation-we-need/ 3.Apply AI needs to be sustainable. Aiming at swift technological transformation of the public sector and key industrial sectors, Europe needs to ensure that AI deployment is environmentally sustainable. The strategy must ensure that the deployment of AI systems is not further driving environmental degradation. AI infrastructure should be fossil fuels free, and additional investments in renewable energy are needed if new data centers are meant to be built. Energy demand of data centers should also be capped and steps should be taken to protect water resources and land needed for people. Transparency is a key measure that allows for monitoring sustainability and environmental impact of AI technologies. Detailed recommendation on sustainable AI can be found in this joint statement of civil society organizations: https://greenscreen.network/en/blog/within-bounds-limiting-ai-environmental-impact
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Meeting with Emmanuelle Du Chalard (Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology)

7 May 2025 · Exchange on rights reservation standards from text and data mining exception

Meeting with Emmanuelle Du Chalard (Head of Unit Communications Networks, Content and Technology)

26 Mar 2025 · Exchange of views on copyright and AI

Meeting with Yvo Volman (Director Communications Networks, Content and Technology) and

28 Jan 2025 · Exchange of views on the role of the digitalisation of cultural heritage in AI development and data policies.

Meeting with Kim Van Sparrentak (Member of the European Parliament) and Technische Universiteit Delft

24 Jan 2025 · Digital trends

Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament) and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and COMMUNIA Association for the Public Domain

2 Oct 2024 · Event: Rebooting the Debate: Generative AI and Creative Work

Response to How to master Europe’s digital infrastructure needs?

30 Jun 2024

Open Future appreciates the opportunity to provide feedback on the European Commission's White Paper "How to master Europe's digital infrastructure needs?". We welcome the fact that the Commission is actively exploring Europe's digital infrastructure needs and we agree with the overall assessment that further investment in digital infrastructure must be prioritized in the second half of Europe's 'digital decade'. However, in our view, much of the analysis underpinning the White Paper (and consequently most of the policy options identified therein) is flawed and fails to address the key digital infrastructure needs as they manifest themselves today. We explain why and propose an alternative scenario for addressing Europe's digital infrastructure needs in the attached document.
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Response to Virtual worlds, such as metaverse

1 May 2023

The following submission by the Open Future Foundation responds to the European Commission's call for evidence on "An EU initiative on virtual worlds: a head start towards the next technological transition." In the submission, we show why policymakers ought to consider virtual worlds as Digital Public Spaces where the public interest takes precedence over corporate objectives.
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Response to 2023 Strategic Foresight Report

13 Mar 2023

Open Future Foundation welcomes the initiative by the European Commission of regular Strategic Foresight Reports. We believe that policies, in order to be sustainable and future-proof, need to be grounded in the kind of evidence that foresight methodologies provide. The 2023 Strategic Foresight Report, aimed at providing a long-term perspective on Europe's sustainability, needs to directly address issues related to the digital environment, technologies, and infrastructures. As our societies become increasingly permeated by digital technologies, issues of sustainability cannot be addressed without considering their impact. The 2022 Strategic Foresight Report successfully explored the connection between the green and digital transitions, using the metaphor of the "twin transition". For this foresight report, we propose to focus on ways in which digital technologies and infrastructures have the capacity to both support and challenge the broadly understood public sphere. By this, we understand a symbolic space, or environment in which "the public" is shaped. The value of the term lies in the fact that it is clearly the opposite of the market, another symbolic space that organizes people and institutions in society. Thus the digital public space can be understood as one that is established through public digital infrastructures, which are based on democratic values, and which can be used and shaped by public institutions and civic initiatives. The digital public space is also a prerequisite for a healthy and civic public debate that will be pivotal to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal and transforming our societies to be more sustainable. In 2022, we outlined a proposal for Digital Public Space as a policy concept (https://openfuture.eu/publication/digital-public-space/). We have also published a report titled A Vision for Shared Digital Europe (http://shared-digital.eu/), in which we propose a policy frame that can guide policymakers and civil society organisations involved with digital policymaking in the direction of a more equitable and democratic digital environment. One where fundamental rights and freedoms are protected, where strong public institutions function in the public interest, and where people have a say in how their digital environment functions. We believe that this framework, and its underlying principles, fita long-term policy perspective on Europes sustainability. The report highlights another key concept, that of the commons. Just as a digital public space, it offers a strong normative basis for policies spanning different spheres of social life, from the digital to the natural. The public sphere and the commons, if properly conceptualized, can be concepts that allow for integrated policies that address, in one stroke, both the digital and the physical environment. That deploy the policy frame of the commons to support sustainable stewardship of digital assets and the natural environment. It is also a concept that underlines the importance of democratic principles and participatory governance. We note that the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade lists Digital Public Space as one of the key principles. This challenge calls for support for a publicly owned and democratically governed online public sphere. Taking into account the importance of broadly understood foresight work for the development of sustainable policies, the European Commission should expand this line of work and conduct more research using futures methodologies. Policies need to be supported not just by evidence but also by shared imaginaries that strengthen political resolve - these can be established with the help of futures research. A broader range of outputs, including more creative forms (including for example, audiovisual or interactive narratives) could also be deployed, to support the Strategic Foresight Report.
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Meeting with Alexandra Geese (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Eurocities and Max Planck Institute Foundation Luxemburg

13 Oct 2022 · Expert Exchange on the Data Act

Meeting with Miapetra Kumpula-Natri (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur)

28 Sept 2022 · Meeting on Data Act

Response to A European Health Data Space

23 Jul 2022

Please see the attached document for the feedback by Open Future and Instrat Foundation on the data access and data sharing rules in Chapter IV of the proposed regulation.
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Meeting with Alin Mituța (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur) and Association des Constructeurs Européens d'Automobiles and Twilio Inc.

12 Jul 2022 · Data Act

Meeting with Ibán García Del Blanco (Member of the European Parliament, Shadow rapporteur for opinion) and Telefonica, S.A. and

30 Jun 2022 · Joint exchange of views on the Data Act

Response to Policy Program - Digital Decade Compass

22 Jul 2021

We welcome the proposed Roadmap for the Digital Compass Policy Program. We agree that coordination between different actors, and between the European Union and its Member States, is key to the success of the European Digital Decade. Having said that, we believe that a stronger presence of the civil society and the non-profit sector is needed for the program to succeed. Please find our full response in the enclosed PDF file.
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Response to Data Act (including the review of the Directive 96/9/EC on the legal protection of databases)

25 Jun 2021

The Data Act is an important addition to the Data Governance Act (DGA), that further completes the European Data Strategy. While the DGA provides the framework for data sharing to take place in the first place, the Data Act seems to be designed to provide the economic conditions to foster the emergence of sectoral data spaces. This economic and market-focused perspective needs to be complimented by a strong focus on public interest and rights of individual end-users. After all, data sharing rules will not only apply to data-driven markets, but beyond them. And it is fundamentally important that European data sharing rules secure not just market competition and innovation, but also data use in the public interest. In the remainder of our submission, we discuss the proposal from a perspective that acknowledges public interest data use, and the fundamental role played by Open Data and Open Access Commons data sharing in the overall data ecosystems. We have addressed these issues also in our previous submission on the proposal for the DGA. Please find our full feedback in the enclosed PDF document.
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Response to Declaration of Digital Principles

9 Jun 2021

We welcome the European Commission’s initiative to include a set of digital principles as a key part of the European digital strategy. We agree that these principles are needed for the digital strategy to secure the growth and wellbeing of the European digital society, and not just of the digital market. In 2019, together with the Commons Network, we developed the digital policy framework “Vision for a Shared Digital Europe” This document is a result of a co-creation process involving experts from over twenty key European digital civil society organisations. The framework provides a foundation for policies leading to a more equitable and democratic digital environment, where basic liberties and rights are protected, where strong public institutions function in the public interest, and where people have a say in how their digital environment functions. At the heart of this vision are four policy principles: Enable Self-Determination, Cultivate the Commons, Decentralise Infrastructure and Empower Public Institutions. These principles can contribute to creating a European digital space that embodies our values: strong public institutions, democratic governance, sovereignty of communities and people, diversity of cultures, and equality and justice. We note that these high level principles of sovereignty, decentralization, empowerment of the public sphere and public institutions, and cultivation of the commons are missing from currently presented proposals for European digital principles, including the recent “Contribution for a common framework on digital principles” that is part of the Lisbon Declaration “Digital Democracy with a Purpose”. We encourage European policymakers to include these high level principles in the Digital Decade policy framework. Enclosed please find the “Vision for a Shared Digital Europe” report.
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Response to Europe’s digital decade: 2030 digital targets

9 Mar 2021

Open Future welcomes the intention of the European Commission to outline a long-term vision for its digital policies. We believe that such a longer time horizon is of essential importance for shaping Europe's digital future. In the attached document we present three high level observations related to the roadmap document published on the 10th of February 2021.
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