Germany is backing a general ban on using personal data in political ads, according to a response to questions from the EU Council’s Czech Presidency on the regulation on political advertising.
In the document obtained by Contexte, dated Friday (2 September), the positions of 16 countries on several issues related to the proposal are set out in reply to questions asked by the Czech Republic.
The regulation, intended to increase transparency in political advertising and combat disinformation in European elections, was proposed by the Commission last year to be in place by the next European Parliament elections in 2024.
In its response, Germany says it “strongly supports a ban on using all personal data for targeting, amplification and ad delivery for political ads,” particularly inferred data.
The reference to inferred data is a meaningful one. The Digital Services Act (DSA), on which EU institutions reached an agreement back in April, includes a ban on processing sensitive information for advertising, such as political orientation, religious beliefs and sexual orientation.
However, the provisions in the DSA do not include statistical inferencing, an increasingly common marketing practice. Therefore, it seems that Germany’s intention is to close a possible loophole.
The country also suggests that the only exception to this be, in the case of location targeting, to allow ads to be delivered to the relevant electorates of specific contests.
It does not, it continues, see the need for an exception covering communications of a party with its current or former members, which it argues is not political advertising but “an inherent part of the membership of a political party.”
Greece also responded with its support for the “complete prohibition” of targeting and amplifying political ads involving the processing of all personal data, as well as for a full ban on microtargeting for political purposes and targeted advertising based on pervasive online tracking.
Some other countries, including Latvia and the Netherlands, back the idea of a ban on processing sensitive data in political ads.
An EU official told EURACTIV that Germany would stick to its call for the ban, adding that the country wanted to further regulate political targeting and they were very much in favour of such a move.
Germany also rejects the suggestion by France, made when the country held the EU Council Presidency in the first half of this year, that the rules surrounding advertising should be intensified in the month preceding an election or referendum.
Under the French proposal, in the run-up to a vote, the normally ten-day window that ad providers would have to respond to requests for information on ads be reduced to 48 hours to bolster transparency at crucial moments and better protect citizens’ rights.
Germany says that instituting different rules at different times is “not practical…as most likely there will nearly always be an electoral period somewhere in the EU.”
The idea was also rejected by other respondents, including Latvia, Luxembourg and Belgium, which pointed to the lack of harmonisation in the definition of “electoral periods” across the EU as the reason.
Germany is also pushing for adding specific rules for infringements by the very large online platforms, with more than 45 million users in the EU that must comply with a special regime under the DSA.
Berlin stressed the need “to better link both regulations and emphasised the potentially higher risks posed by these providers.”
For its part, Hungary took issue with the basis of the regulation as a whole, disputing that it should even be classified as such and arguing that a directive would be more suitable, and adding that it seriously doubts the proposal’s internal market legal basis. As such, the country is calling for the Council’s Legal Service to issue a legal opinion on the matter.
The Commission’s original proposal included additional safeguards in instances where targeting was carried out using sensitive personal data, the processing of which would be overseen by data protection authorities.
However, efforts to expand these measures have not been contained to the Council. In a draft opinion published in July, the Parliament’s civil liberties committee proposed significant limitations to using personal data in targeting ads at users, allowing it only in cases where the data subject had given their express consent and banning it outright in the case of minors.
Laura Kabelka contributed to the reporting.
[Edited by Luca Bertuzzi/Nathalie Weatherald]
