The Briefing: Lula Proclaimed, Geneva Primed, Cairo’s Clock Runs Out

1. Brazil Proclaims a Result and Leaves Its Orders Unreferended

The Tribunal Superior Eleitoral proclaimed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva re-elected with 64,256,232 valid votes, 51.79 per cent, to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 59,826,041, 48.21 per cent, a margin of 4,430,191, in the court’s own account of the announcement (in Portuguese). Two days later it counted the votes cast under the Supreme Court’s extension: 34,393 after 5:00 pm Brasília time, 13 of them after 7:00 pm, about 0.027 per cent of turnout. The losing candidate’s lawyers have said no action will contest the vote itself, Times Brasil reported, though Flávio Bolsonaro says he will seek the cassation of the Lula ticket.

What the court has not published is any Plenary referendum of the Corregedor’s orders of 19, 22 and 23 October on Meta, X, Nikolas Ferreira and Pablo Marçal. The in-person sessions of 27 and 29 October dealt with other business; a virtual session convened by Edital PRES/ASPLEN 29/2026 ran from 28 to 30 October with its case list posted only in the court’s case system; the court was closed on 30 October and 2 November. At least 16 abuse-of-power actions, including the two platform cases, run before the same judge to a diplomação the court expects by 18 December. Why it matters: the six-hourly reach reports remain one judge’s working file until the full bench says whether they were lawfully demanded. Brazil’s Platform Orders Outlive the Vote sets out the record.

2. The First Committee Clears All Four Military-AI Texts

Between 27 and 30 October the General Assembly’s First Committee approved every military-AI text before it. On 29 October it adopted A/C.1/81/L.37, which calls on parties to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons “to advance to negotiations” on lethal autonomous weapons, by 163 votes to 5 with nine abstentions, Belarus, North Korea, Israel, Russia and the United States against, the UN’s meeting summary records; the CCW omnibus, L.67, passed the same day without a vote. On 30 October L.34, booking three-day Geneva dialogues on military AI in 2027 and 2028, passed 171 to 4, the next day’s summary says. Mexico’s decision L.21, on AI in nuclear command and control, went through on 27 October. Why it matters: the omnibus asks CCW parties “to decide by consensus” on the Group of Governmental Experts’ future work, so a 163-vote majority in New York cannot write a mandate in Geneva, where the Seventh Review Conference opens on 16 November. 163 to 5: New York Backs Talks on Autonomous Weapons reads the counts against the procedure.

3. Egypt’s Grace Period Has Expired. The Regulator Says It Starts Now

The one-year grace period under Egypt’s Personal Data Protection Law ended on 31 October 2026: both sources the desk relied on last week, re-opened on 2 November, date it to one year from the Executive Regulations issued by Decree No. 816 of 2025 on 1 November 2025, as a Baker McKenzie update of 7 October sets out, and a 24 October compliance note agrees. No statement on the Personal Data Protection Centre’s own channels was found. The nearest thing to one came from its acting chief executive, Suzan El-Akabawi, who told an industry event reported by Al-Mal on 26 October (in Arabic; translation by AI & GPP) that the Centre will begin exercising its supervisory and inspection powers after the transitional period ends on 1 November 2026, that supervision will not mean automatic inspection of every organisation, that its success is measured by compliance rather than by the number of penalties, and that licence applications and data-protection-officer registrations are already being received. Why it matters: the deadline the desk could not pin down a week ago has now passed on every published reading, and the regulator’s first public line is discretion, not enforcement statistics.

4. The FCC Has Not Ruled on AI Robocalls, and Says It Has No Plans To

The Federal Communications Commission has issued no order on Club for Growth’s petition, filed on 31 August, for a limited waiver of section 64.1200(a)(1)(iii) of its rules and an exemption from section 227(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the Communications Act, to allow non-commercial political calls to mobile numbers “using an artificial or prerecorded voice – including an AI-generated voice – without obtaining prior express consent from the call recipient”, as the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau’s public notice DA 26-940 of 4 September describes it (CG Docket 02-278; comments closed 5 October, replies 19 October). An FCC spokesperson told Al Jazeera on 19 October that “there are zero plans” to move to an order on this or any petition, and that the Commission “seeks comment on petitions that come in as a matter of normal procedure”. The Commission’s document releases of 30 October, the last before the 3 November midterms, carry nothing on the petition. Why it matters: the one regulator the desk has tracked moving towards permission rather than disclosure, in Robocalls, Deepfakes and the Parody Defence, has let the election pass without deciding.

5. Mexico’s Supreme Court Parks 138 Biometric-CURP Appeals

Acuerdo General 13/2026-AAG (in Spanish), adopted unanimously by the Supreme Court’s Pleno on 14 October and published in the Diario Oficial on 22 October, orders the collegiate circuit courts to keep processing, but not decide, amparos turning on the July 2025 reform of the Ley General de Población that made the biometric CURP compulsory. It cites 138 such appeals pending at 30 September and seven before the Court itself. The order is silent on the platform; El CEO reported that it does not suspend the biometric CURP’s roll-out and implies no view on its constitutionality. Why it matters: a national biometric identifier is running while its legal basis sits in a queue with no date, the mirror image of Chile, where the data-protection agency the AI bill leans on will not exist until 15 October 2027. Chile Keeps Boric’s AI Bill Alive While Kast Reserves a Rewrite draws the comparison.

6. Canada and the EU Write AI Conformity Into a Summit Text

The Joint Statement closing the 21st Canada–EU Summit in Montréal on 30 October, issued by Prime Minister Mark Carney with António Costa and Ursula von der Leyen according to the Prime Minister’s Office, commits the two sides to “advance cooperation on artificial intelligence (AI) security and safety”, to “support reciprocal access to our respective digital markets” including “in the field of cloud and AI services and infrastructure”, and to cooperate on “AI Factories and other large-scale AI compute facilities” (paragraph 24). Paragraph 26 adds a new commitment: the parties “will work towards mutual recognition” in three digital spheres, the second being “conformity assessment results for artificial intelligence systems”. Canada has joined the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking and the two sides have concluded substantive negotiations on a Digital Trade Agreement. The statement does not mention data centres or procurement. Why it matters: mutual recognition of AI conformity assessments would let a Canadian supplier’s test results count under the EU AI Act, and vice versa, a procurement consequence the summit’s own press release does not spell out; the summit trigger on Ottawa Says Data-Centre Power Is Not Its Problem fires with a statement, not a cloud-procurement rule.

7. South Australia’s Royal Commission Opens With Six Themes and a Carve-Out

The Royal Commission into Artificial Intelligence, chaired by Dr Iain Ross AO with Kate Pounder and Dr Christopher Manning, called for submissions on 29 October with the release of its Scoping Paper, which sets six themes (AI in society; better services for people and the state; growing innovation in South Australia; managing the economic transition; education, training and skills; safe and trusted AI) and asks five questions. The commission commenced on 1 October 2026 and reports by 1 July 2027. Its Terms of Reference page is explicit about what is out: “Matters relating to data centres are not part of our Terms of Reference”, nor are matters “primarily within the responsibility of the Commonwealth” such as national security, financial market stability, critical national infrastructure, and intellectual property and copyright. No closing date for submissions appears on the pages opened. Why it matters: the first Australian royal commission on AI has fenced off the two subjects, data centres and copyright, on which Australian governments are under most pressure, in the same week Canberra’s House passed a duty of care that names chatbot dependence as a harm to children.

8. Beijing Certifies 21 More Personal-Information Auditors

The Cyberspace Administration of China published on 28 October (in Chinese) the third batch of professional institutions certified to provide personal-information-protection compliance audits: 21 bodies, certified by the Central Cyberspace Affairs Office’s Data and Technology Support Centre, the China Cybersecurity Review, Certification and Market Regulation Big Data Centre and Beijing CESI Certification under the Personal Information Protection Law and the Measures on Personal Information Protection Compliance Audits, with the certification carried out under the Regulations on Certification and Accreditation. The list itself is published as an image. Why it matters: the audit duty on large data handlers is only as real as the supply of auditors allowed to sign off, and Beijing is building that supply in batches while it also puts a jobs test inside AI project review.

9. Islamabad Chooses Age Assurance Over a Ban

Pakistan’s Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, told an online-safety event in Islamabad on 28 October that the government did not “want to rush into any decision that creates unintended consequences”, and that bans push children onto platforms “that are not well-regulated”, Arab News reported; she said Pakistan was discussing more reliable age-assurance systems with technology companies and warned that VPNs defeat location-based bans. Radio Pakistan’s account has her calling for collaboration with global technology firms on “foolproof age-assurance mechanisms”. Arab News notes that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has told the Islamabad High Court it lacks statutory authority to impose mandatory age verification, that a Senate bill on age-restricted users was withdrawn in August 2025, and that the Punjab Assembly passed a non-binding resolution on 1 September urging federal under-16 restrictions. Why it matters: in the same week Türkiye switched on a state-issued age token for every new account, Pakistan’s minister has named the opposite design and conceded her regulator has no power to impose either.

10. New York’s Courts Tell Lawyers How to Check What AI Wrote

The New York State Unified Court System’s Advisory Committee on Artificial Intelligence and the Courts released a seven-page guide, The Risks of Using Artificial Intelligence in Preparing Court Papers: What Every Attorney Should Know, the court system announced on 26 October. It follows a Model Rule adopted earlier this year under which attorneys using generative AI “must understand the capabilities and limitations of those tools and independently ensure the accuracy and reliability of any information generated”. The guide confirms an “informational model”: attorneys are not required to disclose AI use at filing or to give separate certifications, but must confirm every AI-generated citation and quotation through authoritative legal research tools, scrutinise generated text for bias, and “document the steps taken to verify material produced with AI assistance”. Chief Administrative Judge Joseph A. Zayas said the document “reinforces the bedrock principle that attorneys remain fully accountable for the accuracy of the papers they submit to the courts”. Why it matters: a court system has written down what verification means, reading the authority and recording that it was read, which is the same discipline this week’s Methods piece asks of contracts that accept an F1 score.