It’s been almost a year since the EU’s executive announced it would propose rules for political ads transparency in response to concern about online microtargeting and big data techniques making mincemeat of democratic integrity and accountability.
Today it’s come out with its proposal. But frankly it doesn’t look like the wait was worth it.
The Commission’s PR claims the proposal will introduce “strict conditions for targeting and amplifying” political advertising using digital tools — including what it describes as a ban on targeting and amplification that use or infer “sensitive personal data, such as ethnic origin, religious beliefs or sexual orientation”.
However the claimed ‘ban’ does not apply if “explicit consent” is obtained from the person whose sensitive data is to be exploited to better target them with propaganda — and online ‘consents’ to ad targeting are already a total trashfire of non-compli …
