Austrian privacy group noyb today published a ranking of Members of the European Parliament based on more than 1,000 amendments they tabled to the GDPR and ePrivacy parts of the Digital Omnibus, the EU package that would rewrite core privacy rules. According to noyb, the European People's Party (EPP) is "clearly the worst for privacy protections," with 248 amendments graded as lowering protections against 24 graded as raising them, for a group score of -224. Only three political groups, the Greens/EFA, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and the Left, finished with a positive score.

In Short

A privacy group read every change that EU lawmakers have proposed to Europe's main privacy law and marked each one as better, worse or neutral for people's privacy. It found that the largest group in the European Parliament, the centre-right EPP, proposed far more changes that would weaken protections than any other group, while the Greens, Socialists and Left proposed more changes that would strengthen them. The Parliament has not voted yet, but its position will decide how much of the current rules on tracking, advertising and AI survives the final negotiation with EU governments.

What noyb published

The ranking sits on a new website, gdpr-omnibus.eu, operated by NOYB - European Center for Digital Rights, the Vienna-based non-profit chaired by Max Schrems. noyb distributed it to journalists in a media update sent on October 12, 2026 at 11:22, under the subject line "Ranking: Who in the EU Parliament wants to limit privacy rights?" The website carries a copyright line for 2026 and navigation by country, by political group and through a set of "special rankings."

According to noyb, it "analysed more than 1,000 amendments that Members of Parliament (MEPs) have tabled for the GDPR and ePrivacy Directive." The organisation says it "sorted and graded more than 1,000 amendments for more/less privacy and also simplification," and that the website offers "a comprehensive grading of every single MEP who has made amendments, searchable by political group and country."

The reason given is access. According to noyb, it is "almost impossible" for citizens and journalists to find out what individual MEPs are doing on the file. Amendments in the European Parliament are tabled in committee documents running to hundreds of pages, and no official tool aggregates them by direction of travel.

Max Schrems framed the exercise in political terms. "Almost every parliamentarian claims to 'uphold' people's rights, but many do the exact opposite. We bring their intentions to the surface and show who is working on behalf of the people - and who is working on behalf of big tech under the cover of alleged 'simplification'," he said, according to the media update.

noyb is not a neutral observer of this file. It has opposed the Commission's proposal since before its publication, and PPC Land reported in November 2025 that Schrems accused the Commission of "secretly trying to overrun everyone else in Brussels." The organisation says it has filed around 800 cases against companies including Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, and is funded by more than 5,000 supporting members. The ranking is noyb's own assessment of each amendment, and the grades below are its grades.

How the score works

The arithmetic is simple. According to the methodology note in the media update, "the ranking counts the number of positive amendments and subtracts negative amendments," producing an overall positive or negative score. Amendments that noyb considered "unclear or neutral are not counted."

One limitation is stated plainly by noyb itself: "The relevance of each Amendments (big or small change) is not taken into account." An amendment that would remove online advertising from the scope of the GDPR counts the same as one that tweaks a deadline. A legislator who tables a single far-reaching change and many minor protective ones could therefore score positive, and the reverse is also possible. The media update says further detail is available on the website, but the captured page does not reproduce it.

Each entry on the site shows three bars. A green bar counts amendments noyb graded as lowering protection, a grey bar counts amendments it graded as neutral or unclear, and an orange bar counts amendments graded as increasing protection. The final score is the orange figure minus the green one. For the Greens/EFA, for example, 25 positive amendments minus 8 negative ones gives +17, with 47 neutral amendments shown but excluded.

Group scores

The group table on gdpr-omnibus.eu is headed "Privacy score by group" and described as "aggregate sentiment of amendments by political group." The figures, as published by noyb, are:

  • Greens/European Free Alliance: 8 negative, 47 neutral, 25 positive, score +17
  • Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats: 25 negative, 105 neutral, 37 positive, score +12
  • The Left (GUE/NGL): 12 negative, 57 neutral, 24 positive, score +12
  • Europe of Sovereign Nations: 3 negative, 7 neutral, 3 positive, score 0
  • Renew Europe: 30 negative, 58 neutral, 30 positive, score 0
  • Non-attached Members: 12 negative, 32 neutral, 7 positive, score -5
  • Patriots for Europe: 49 negative, 44 neutral, 24 positive, score -25
  • European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR): 89 negative, 71 neutral, 25 positive, score -64
  • European People's Party (Christian Democrats): 248 negative, 100 neutral, 24 positive, score -224

Added together, the nine rows contain 1,196 graded amendments: 476 negative, 199 positive and 521 neutral or unclear. That total is consistent with noyb's "more than 1,000." It is a PPC Land calculation from the published rows, however, and noyb does not say whether an amendment co-signed by MEPs from two groups appears in both rows. On these figures, amendments graded as lowering protection outnumber those graded as raising it by more than two to one, and the EPP alone accounts for 248 of the 476 negative ones, or 52%.

The neutral column is large. Some 44% of all graded amendments landed there, which means the scores rest on the 675 amendments noyb was prepared to classify.

According to noyb, "almost all MEPs have made amendments that go in both directions, but the tendency is clear." The media update says the EPP's negative amendments include "the limitation of the scope of privacy protections and the proposal of far-reaching exceptions for high-risk AI." It describes the ECR as having "performed poorly overall" and says the Patriots "achieved a better score, but it was still negative."

Schrems drew a comparison across the spectrum. "Overall, the European People's Party is clearly the worst for privacy protections and a gift to US big tech. When it comes to privacy rights, even the far-right is more 'centre' than the conservatives. The S&D, the Greens and the Left are the only groups that overall defend privacy rights," he said, according to noyb.

The individual rankings

The website splits individual MEPs into two lists: "The Privacy Offenders," described as MEPs "trying to lower current or proposed protections," and "The Privacy Champs," MEPs "trying to increase privacy protections." The offenders list carries 76 names. The champions list carries 23.

The negative list

The EPP dominates the lowest scores. Every one of the 17 lowest-scoring MEPs on the page sits in the EPP, according to noyb's figures. The bottom of the table reads:

  • Axel Voss (EPP, Germany): 76 negative, 26 neutral, 9 positive, score -67
  • Angelika Niebler (EPP, Germany): 58 negative, 22 neutral, 2 positive, score -56
  • Ana Miguel Pedro (EPP, Portugal): 57 negative, 25 neutral, 2 positive, score -55
  • Oliver Schenk (EPP, Germany), listed as Shadow Rapporteur LIBE: 52 negative, 25 neutral, score -52
  • François-Xavier Bellamy (EPP, France): 45 negative, 9 neutral, 2 positive, score -43
  • Andrea Wechsler (EPP, Germany): 44 negative, 22 neutral, 2 positive, score -42
  • Monika Hohlmeier (EPP, Germany): 38 negative, 10 neutral, 2 positive, score -36
  • Aura Salla (EPP, Finland), listed as Co-Rapporteur ITRE: 43 negative, 43 neutral, 8 positive, score -35

Lena Düpont (-32), Niels Flemming Hansen (-30), Arba Kokalari (-28), Christian Ehler (-28), Jörgen Warborn (-28), Marion Walsmann (-27), Romana Tomc (-27), Christian Doleschal (-26) and Tomas Tobé (-26) complete the EPP run. Two ECR members follow, Sebastian Tynkkynen, listed as Shadow Rapporteur LIBE, and Diego Solier, both at -25.

Salla's position matters more than most. She is one of the two co-rapporteurs on the file, and PPC Land reported on September 21, 2026 that noyb described the Parliament as split along political lines, with Marina Kaljurand of S&D as the other co-rapporteur. Kaljurand, listed as Co-Rapporteur LIBE, appears on the positive list at +9. The two MEPs who will carry much of the Parliament's negotiating weight therefore sit on opposite sides of noyb's ledger.

A pattern in the middle of the negative list is worth noting. Seven Patriots for Europe members (Julie Rechagneux, listed as Shadow Rapporteur ITRE; Fabrice Leggeri, listed as Shadow Rapporteur LIBE; Aleksandar Nikolic; Alexandre Varaut; Christophe Bay; Mélanie Disdier; and Pierre-Romain Thionnet) and one ECR member, Marion Maréchal, show identical figures: 44 negative, 44 neutral, 24 positive, score -20. All eight are French. Identical rows are consistent with amendments tabled jointly and counted for each signatory, but noyb's material does not say so.

The negative list is not confined to the right. It includes ten Renew Europe members: Ana Vasconcelos and João Cotrim De Figueiredo at -9, Bart Groothuis, Ivars Ijabs, Morten Løkkegaard and Nikola Minchev at -7, Katri Kulmuni at -5, Andreas Glück and Svenja Hahn at -4, and Sophie Wilmès at -3. One S&D member, Dario Nardella, appears at -2. The smallest scores on the list are -1, for Elena Donazzan (ECR), Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik (PfE), Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez (EPP) and Markus Buchheit (ESN).

The positive list

At the other end, the highest score belongs to Markéta Gregorová (Greens/EFA, Czech Republic), listed as Shadow Rapporteur LIBE, with 8 negative, 47 neutral and 25 positive amendments, for +17. Four MEPs follow at +15: Irena Joveva (Renew, Slovenia, Shadow Rapporteur LIBE), Fabienne Keller (Renew, France), Oihane Agirregoitia Martínez (Renew, Spain) and Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová (Renew, Slovakia). Damian Boeselager (Greens/EFA, Germany, Shadow Rapporteur ITRE) scores +12, with no negative amendments at all. Michael McNamara (Renew, Ireland, Shadow Rapporteur ITRE) and Pernando Barrena Arza (The Left, Spain, Shadow Rapporteur LIBE) follow at +11.

S&D supplies the most names on the positive list, nine in total, including Kaljurand, Alex Agius Saliba (listed as Rapporteur IMCO, +9), Kristian Vigenin (+8), Elena Sancho Murillo (Shadow Rapporteur ITRE, +6), Birgit Sippel (+6) and Brando Benifei (+6). Renew contributes seven names. The rest are two from Greens/EFA, two from the Left, two non-attached members (Martin Sonneborn and Sibylle Berg, both +4) and one from Europe of Sovereign Nations: Mary Khan, listed as Shadow Rapporteur LIBE, at +1.

Renew's split explains its zero. Seven of its MEPs appear among the 23 champions and ten among the 76 offenders, and the group's 30 positive and 30 negative amendments cancel out exactly.

What noyb says the Parliament is deciding

The media update places the ranking in the wider legislative sequence. According to noyb, the Commission's original proposal "included the plan to limit the scope of the GDPR so that not even online advertising would be covered" and "a free pass for the use of personal data for AI without consent." Those descriptions are noyb's. The Commission's November 2025 text proposed a relative definition of personal data and a new legal basis for AI development under legitimate interest, and noyb warned at the time that the narrower definition could remove protection from inferred sensitive data used in advertising.

"By now, EU Member States have largely agreed to add these massive loopholes to the GDPR - which only leaves the European Parliament to save the GDPR from being undermined," according to noyb. The Council side has moved fast. On October 9, 2026, PPC Land reported that EU ambassadors were expected to decide on Sunday, October 11, on a 163-page Council mandate that cuts the cookie re-prompt wait to four months and exempts contextual advertising measurement from consent. Neither of the attached documents states the outcome of that meeting.

Once the Council has a mandate and the Parliament adopts its own report, the two institutions negotiate a final text in trilogue. The ranking therefore captures the Parliament's committee stage, before any vote, when amendments are still proposals from individual members and groups. The final Parliament position will be a compromise worked out by the rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs, several of whom appear in noyb's lists.

Simplification and complexity

noyb also tried to test the official rationale. The Digital Omnibus is presented as simplification for European businesses that maintains the GDPR's level of protection. According to noyb, it looked for amendments "that would simplify the GDPR without lowering privacy protections."

The result, as noyb tells it, cuts against the conservative groups. "We also found that the EPP holds 9 of the 10 top ranks for amendments that result in the opposite: lower protection while also making the law more (!) complicated," the media update says. It adds that "the Greens, Left, Renew and S&D were indeed proposing amendments that more often squared simplification and privacy."

"Overall, the conservatives managed to add complexity to the law while also lowering protections. Interestingly the liberal, centre-left and left parties were more successful in squaring privacy and simplification," Schrems said, according to noyb.

That finding echoes earlier noyb work. In March 2026, PPC Land covered a noyb survey of 510 data protection professionals which found that more than 70% considered Article 15 access requests to create little or no workload, while records of processing and impact assessments were ranked as the heaviest burdens.

Claims that the captured page does not show

The two documents do not cover exactly the same ground, and several of noyb's headline claims cannot be checked against the website capture supplied.

The media update says Renew "dominates the ranking of most 'pushback' against the Commission's flawed proposals with 5 of the top 10 MEPs in that category." It also says "the EPP also holds 10 of the top 10 ranks for the most violations of the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights," and that the EPP holds nine of the top ten ranks for amendments that both lower protection and add complexity. The captured page links to a "ranking by Charter violations" and a "ranking by Pushbacks" under its "Special Rankings" menu, but does not reproduce either list. Those three figures rest on noyb's statement alone. How noyb decided that an amendment would breach the Charter is not explained in either document.

There is also a framing difference. The media update says the website grades "every single MEP who has made amendments." The main ranking page lists 99 MEPs across its two lists. MEPs whose positive and negative counts cancel to zero would fit in neither list, so the two statements are not necessarily inconsistent, but the page supplied does not show any such MEP.

The media update describes the Sovereigns and Renew as having "an even score of zero," and the group table confirms both at 0. The Patriots' score of -25 and the ECR's -64 match the media update's descriptions of "negative" and "poorly overall."

Why the ranking matters for marketers

For advertisers, publishers and ad tech companies operating in Europe, the omnibus reopens the legal basis for tracking and measurement under both the GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive. The Commission's proposal on browser consent signals has already been removed on the Council side: PPC Land reported in June 2026 that the Council dropped the Article 88b signal after lobbying, and 19 organisations asked in September for its return. The industry has its own demands, with Alliance Digitale calling for the re-request ban to be deleted.

The Parliament is the remaining institution whose position is open. If noyb's counting is broadly right, the amendments now on the table pull in different directions by political group, and the result will depend on how the compromise amendments are drafted rather than on a clear majority. The EPP is the largest group in the Parliament, so the weight of its amendments matters in any compromise, and Salla's role as co-rapporteur gives her text a central place in the negotiation.

The data protection authorities have taken their own view. In February 2026, the EDPB and EDPS rejected the Commission's plan to narrow the personal data definition, and the Netherlands raised concerns about the same provisions. The AI part of the omnibus has already been split off and agreed, after a provisional deal in May that pushed high-risk deadlines to 2027.

Several questions remain open. noyb has not published, in the material supplied, the text of individual amendments alongside each grade, nor the criteria used to call an amendment positive, negative or neutral. Without those, the ranking can be read as an advocacy group's map of the file rather than an independent audit. It still offers a count of the Parliament's GDPR amendments by direction that no official source provides, and for a file that will set the rules on cookies, pseudonymised data and AI training for years, the count is useful information in its own right.

Timeline

Summary

Who: noyb (NOYB - European Center for Digital Rights), chaired by Max Schrems, which graded the amendments; the Members of the European Parliament who tabled them, including the EPP, ECR, Patriots for Europe, Renew Europe, S&D, Greens/EFA, the Left, Europe of Sovereign Nations and non-attached members.

What: A ranking on the new website gdpr-omnibus.eu of more than 1,000 Parliament amendments to the GDPR and ePrivacy parts of the Digital Omnibus, scored as positive amendments minus negative ones. According to noyb, the EPP scored -224 with 248 negative amendments, the ECR -64, the Patriots -25, non-attached members -5, Renew and the Sovereigns 0, and the Left, S&D and Greens/EFA +12, +12 and +17. Of 99 individual MEPs listed, 76 scored negative and 23 positive; Axel Voss had the lowest score at -67 and Markéta Gregorová the highest at +17.

When: noyb sent its media update today, October 12, 2026, while the Parliament is at committee stage and after EU ambassadors were expected to decide on the Council's mandate on October 11.

Where: The European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg; the rules under negotiation would apply across the EU.

Why: noyb argues that the omnibus would strip privacy protections under the label of simplification and that the Parliament is the last institution able to stop it. For advertisers and publishers, the Parliament's final position will shape the trilogue outcome on cookie consent, the definition of personal data and the legal basis for AI training.