Political Microtargeting by EU Commission illegal

noyb win against European Commission: EDPS (European Data Protection Supervisor) issues decision finding that the European Commission has illegally targeted advertisement on citizens using "sensitive" personal data on their political views.

EU Commission tried to influence political views in the Netherlands. In the contentious fight over the heavily criticized chat control regulation (a proposed EU law that could undermine all encrypted online communication to allow authorities to read online chats), the European Commission has identified the Netherlands as a Member State that they wanted to influence politically. In an attempt to "flip" the views in the Netherlands, the Commission went to X/Twitter and made postings indirectly promoting this Regulation.

Political Targeting on X/Twitter. The European Commission did however not only post these political messages, but also targeted users who weren't interested in keywords like: #Qatargate, brexit, Marine Le Pen, Alternative für Deutschland, Vox, Christian, Christian-phobia or Giorgia Meloni. The clear intention was to only target politically liberal or left users, but not conservative or right-wing users. Advertisers often use so-called "proxy data" (so data closely associated with political thinking) to target politician views. By doing so the European Commission has clearly triggered the processing of personal data of EU citizens to target them with ads.

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