Open by Design, Exposed by Default: Data Security and the Strategic Challenge of PLA Intelligentised Warfare

<jats:p>Key Takeaways: - What counts as relevant is being redefined by intelligentisation, where data quality determines AI effectiveness, making peacetime civilian data acquisition a form of military preparation. - The establishment of ISF in April 2024 institutionalised the doctrinal shift of information gathering into intelligentisation. - MCF creates legal pathways for access to civilian capabilities and information, rather than implying automatic espionage or data transfer. - There is an aggregation problem as individual datasets may appear innocuous or commercially oriented, yet their combination can generate strategic value by enabling more comprehensive profiling, inference, targeting, or AI training. - The EU’s principal gap is one of integration rather than absence: the EU already possesses instruments addressing cybersecurity, data protection, AI, investment screening, and research security, but these frameworks are not systematically connected around the cumulative military value that data can acquire through aggregation.</jats:p>