Political parties must make sure June 2024 election is free and fair by upholding data protection
By WOJCIECH WIEWIÓROWSKI, The EUobserver, 01 May 2024
WARSAW - With around 400 million Europeans voting in the EU elections in June 2024, political parties have a duty to protect personal data, and to ensure free and fair elections.
From newspapers, radio, to TV, the medium for political advertising and campaigning to convince or sway public opinion has evolved. Today it is increasingly happening on social media.
For most political parties, coalitions and candidates, it is an important part of their strategy to connect and engage with potential voters. Reciprocally, it can enable EU citizens, especially young people, to start informing themselves about the current political landscape, make their voices heard, and influence the decisions of tomorrow. For better or for worse, social media contributes to shaping the democratic process, and, consequently, it may interfere with the outcome of elections.
Political parties, coalitions and candidates growingly rely on data-driven communication: a combination of monitoring target voters and opinion leaders; using predictive tools to classify people’s personality traits, opinions, preferences, behaviours and other characteristics; as well as other profiling techniques, to make assumptions or draw conclusions about political views that a person, or cluster of people, may hold.
This poses risks
The deployment of these data processing techniques for political purposes can pose risks to EU citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy and to the protection of their personal data. The reduced intimate space available to people, as a result of tracking and profiling, has a chilling effect on people’s ability and willingness to express themselves and form relationships freely, including in the civic sphere so essential to the health of democracy. In other words, a violation of EU citizens’ privacy and data protection rights, such as misusing, or repurposing their personal data, may have a ricochet effect on their freedom of expression, opinion, and also on their possibility to think freely without being manipulated.
Whilst the sharing of deceptive content online, commonly branded as fake news, is not new, the proliferation of Generative AI has only magnified such risks, making it even more difficult for social media consumers to discern true from false, to identify why and what type of content is being targeted to them.
It is counter-productive to deny or resist the progress of technologies, such as AI, or not to recognise some of the benefits that social media has in bringing information closer to the public, especially to young people. However, it is imperative that all actors at stake are genuinely committed to protecting the integrity of the democratic process, and to ensuring free and fair elections, by respecting privacy and data protection, in these important times of EU elections.
Achieving this goal requires shared responsibility and accountability amongst social media platforms, analytics companies, advertising networks, but also political parties, coalitions and candidates. It means being cautious about what type of data is collected and how. We still find it very difficult to imagine a justification for the collecting and processing of sensitive data, for instance data on health or sex life, in order to advance political messages. Shared responsibility and accountability also means being cautious about how data is used and being genuinely informative, by explaining to people ‘if, how and when’ their personal data is processed.
For example, it should be made clear to a social media consumer why they are seeing certain content in their feeds, and what is the nature of the content. This is a reinforced obligation, under the recently passed Digital Service Act, for what is technically-termed as very large online platforms and search engines to indicate AI-generated content for example.
The GDPR stands as a formidable guardian, not just of personal data, but also of the very essence of democracy itself. In today's hyper-digitalised landscape, it serves as a crucial bulwark, ensuring the preservation of fundamental rights to privacy and data protection for EU citizens. By upholding these principles, especially during this period of European elections, political parties, and all actors involved would not only foster trust in the digital realm, but also reinforce the bedrock of freedom of expression. In doing so, they fortify the integrity of the democratic process, heralding a time where individual rights are respected, voices are heard, and democracy is protected in the digital age.
Author
Wojciech Wiewiórowski is the European Data Protection Supervisor.
