Facebook has paused election reminders in Europe after data watchdog raises transparency concerns
Big tech’s lead privacy regulator in Europe has intervened to flag transparency concerns about a Facebook election reminder feature — asking the tech giant to provide it with information about what data it collects from users who interact with the notification and how their personal data is used, including whether it’s used for targeting them with ads.
Facebook’s Election Day Reminder (EDR) feature is a notification the platform can display to users on the day of an election — ostensibly to encourage voter participation. However, as ever with the data-driven ad business, there’s a whole wrapper of associated questions about what information Facebook’s platform might be harvesting when it chooses to deploy the nudge — and how the (ad) business is making use of the data.
