Disinformation can never be fully eliminated, but its impact on public discourse and security can be limited. Within the EU’s regulatory framework, public sector actors must ensure that countermeasures comply with democratic principles, legal standards, and data protection requirements, even when responding to hostile influence operations.

One tool remains consistently available: transparency. It can be one of the most effective ways to counter disinformation without undermining rights or democratic values. This approach is already used across Europe, from the EUvsDisinfo database to the German Foreign Office’s report on the “Doppelgänger” campaign and investigations by the NATO StratCom COE in Riga.

The session “Leveraging Transparency Against Disinformation – A European Perspective on Detecting, Analysing and Defending against Information Manipulation & Interference” highlights European best practices and shows how transparency can be operationalised as a practical way to detect, analyse and counter disinformation.

We bring together European experts in OSINT, cybersecurity, strategic communications and research to discuss:

• How transparency can expose the actors, networks and financing behind disinformation;

• What tools and data infrastructures already work in the European context;

• How public authorities, tech actors and civil society can collaborate effectively and lawfully.