European Parliament Approves Prohibition Against Foreign Funding Of Political Ads

On Tuesday, EU lawmakers passed new rules on political advertising that aim to strengthen protection against foreign involvement in European elections.

The European Union believes the regulation will make it easier for citizens to identify political commercials, who created them, and if they are targeted marketing.

Countries outside the EU will be barred from paying for political advertising in the bloc during the three months preceding an election or referendum.

The regulations also prohibit the use of personal data, such as ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation, in political advertising, as well as data on children.

Sandro Gozi, the politician who drove the text through parliament, stated that the EU was taking action to strengthen the defence of our freedoms and personal data, and to increase the transparency of electoral campaigns, particularly online.

During a Monday debate, Gozi stated that the guidelines would also strengthen actions against those who want to manipulate democratic processes.

The law will take effect 18 months after it is formally accepted by both the parliament and the EU states, while some provisions will go into effect in time for the EU elections on June 6-9.

Individuals and groups will be able to advertise across the bloc’s borders in the run-up to the elections, rather than just one country as was previously the case.

A majority of parliamentarians supported the measure after negotiators from the parliament and the EU’s 27 member states reached an accord in November last year.

The amendments are part of an update to legislation suggested in 2021 following Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica incident, in which millions of users’ data was collected for political research without their consent.

The regulation requires online platforms to label content as political advertising.

It also states that personal data explicitly provided for online political advertising and gathered from individuals may be utilized by providers to target users.

The European Commission will also create a publicly accessible database of all online political adverts for a maximum of seven years.

Because the laws will not take effect immediately, the EU has issued a set of recommendations for the world’s largest internet platforms as part of its groundbreaking Digital Services Act, in an attempt to encourage voluntary compliance ahead of the June polls.

The panel proposes that platforms mark content efficiently and visibly to ensure users are aware it contains political advertising.

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