EU To Introduce New Rules On Political Ads
The European Parliament is taking a hard stance on political advertisements, striving to make elections more clear and secure from manipulation. To achieve this goal, IMCO has proposed limiting the use of personal data to only those which are explicitly given for purposes of political advertising, thus prohibiting microtargeting – sending ads based on gender, race, or sexual orientation. Moreover, exploiting the data of minors will be strictly prohibited.
Regulating communications sent via letter, email, or text messaging at large scale requires further investigation; however, organic self-posted content will be excluded from the targeting rules. In addition, MEPs are also calling for a ban on non-EU actors paying for political ads in the EU.
At the same time, new rules concerning transparency have been introduced, which require providing much more information to citizens, authorities, and journalists. As a result, an online repository containing all online political advertisements and related data would be created.
Source: EU Seeks To Avoid Another Cambridge Analytica Scandal With New Rules On Political Ads