"The secrecy provision, which the European Commission added to its proposal almost verbatim after industry lobbying in 2024, hinders scrutiny of the pollution that individual datacentres emit."
"Legal scholars warn the blanket confidentiality clause may fall foul of EU transparency rules and the Aarhus convention on public access to environmental information."
"Documents obtained by Investigate Europe show the rules have already been used to shield datacentres from scrutiny, with all requests for access to documents being refused."
US tech companies, including Microsoft, successfully lobbied the EU to include a secrecy provision in regulations that obscures the environmental impact of datacentres. This provision prevents public access to detailed green metrics, leaving only national-level summaries available. The construction of datacentres has surged due to the rise of AI, often powered by fossil fuels. Legal experts express concerns that this confidentiality may violate EU transparency laws and the Aarhus convention, which guarantees public access to environmental information. Requests for access to datacentre data have been consistently denied.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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