Political parties increasingly use personal data – or hire companies to do so – to reach their members and potential new members in the most targeted way possible. The latter is called microtargeting. Of course political parties can campaign. And nowadays this happens a lot digitally. But political parties have to adhere to privacy rules. The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) has therefore published a handbook on privacy in election campaigns.
The Handbook for Election Campaigns on Privacy contains 7 points of attention for political parties that want to start their election campaign. The main point of attention is that it deals with the processing of so-called special personal data, for which special rules apply.
Special personal data
Membership of a political party is a fact about a person’s political views. And this is special personal data according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In principle, it is prohibited to process special personal data, unless there is a legal exception.
Target audience campaign
An important difference in the GDPR is whether a political party focuses its campaign on party members or (also) on potential new voters.
Members
Does it concern existing members? Then political parties can of course inform them about the elections. The GDPR contains an exception to the prohibition of processing special personal data to allow communication to existing members.
Non-members
The rules are different for non-members. This can also apply to data about people’s political opinions, i.e. special personal data. But the legal exception for communication to members does not apply.
For communications to non-members, a party must check whether another valid legal exception applies. One of these exceptions is the explicit consent of the persons involved.
Microtargeting
In political microtargeting, political parties collect personal data from people and then use it to send them a personalised message. It is important that political parties comply with the GDPR.
The AP monitors political parties’ compliance with the GDPR. Elections and microtargeting are an area of particular focus for the AP.
handleiding_privacy_verkiezingscampagnesSOURCE: AUTORITA’ PER LA PROTEZIONE DEI DATI DEI PAESI BASSI – AP