Political microtargeting violates voters’ data privacy, German regulator rules
The Berlin Data Protection Authority takes aim at voter microtargeting.
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- Berlin’s data protection regulator reprimanded four German parties over voter microtargeting in the 2021 federal election.
- The regulator found no legal basis for targeting users with ads based on personal political interests.
- Privacy group noyb argued that using sensitive personal data for campaign ads can threaten democratic elections.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Four German political parties have been reprimanded over the use of microtargeting during the 2021 federal election.
In 2021, German late-night show ZDF Magazin Royale revealed that all political parties represented in the Bundestag – Germany’s House of Representatives – were using political microtargeting on Facebook to show ads to select groups of people.
The show asked viewers to install a browser extension to log microtargeting data, which allowed the Austrian privacy advocacy group noyb to analyze and identify specific GDPR violations.
In 2023, noyb filed a complaint against several major German political parties for using sensitive personal information to deliver personalized political advertising and reach potential voters.
This form of campaigning, known as microtargeting, involves collecting and using detailed personal information about internet users, including their interests, habits, interactions, and other data. Political parties either collect this information themselves or hire a company to do so.
These details can be used to manipulate users in the electoral process, which poses a threat to democratic elections, noyb argues. Therefore, the interest group filed a complaint against the SPD, CDU, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Die Linke, and AfD.
No legal basis
Last week, the Berlin Data Protection Authority ruled that there was no legal basis for targeting users based on their personal political interests for advertising. In addition, the regulator found that the processing of personal data by these political parties was unlawful.
The complaint against AfD is currently still pending with the Berlin Data Protection Authority because the party is fighting the regulator’s investigative powers in court.
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“We welcome the Berlin DPA’s decision. Microtargeting poses a threat to democracy, so these decisions provide a level playing field for political parties. It is unfortunate, however, that it took the Authority more than three years. After all, there was another federal election in the meantime,” data protection lawyer at noyb Felix Mikolasch says in a statement.
Noyb Chairman Max Schrems believes that the Berlin privacy and data protection supervisor should have immediately issued a ban on microtargeting.
“We hope that it will take swift enforcement action if political parties continue to rely on such activities,” he concluded.
