On 28 November 2019 the European Data Protection Supervisor announced that “it is carrying out an investigation into the European Parliament’s use of a US-based political campaigning company to process personal data as part of its activities relating to the 2019 EU parliamentary election.”

In its press release the EDPS stressed that “Election campaigns are currently the subject of considerable scrutiny. The EDPS is actively engaged in seeking solutions to the challenges of online manipulation in elections while the European Parliament itself adopted a resolution to protect the European elections from data misuse in March 2019. Data protection plays a fundamental role in ensuring electoral integrity and must therefore be treated as a priority in the planning of any election campaign.”

The investigation is ongoing and highlights the growing attention towards elections and their intrinsic relationship with the use of data and the importance that data protection laws have with respect to democracy. I look forward to reading about the outcome of the investigation in the near future.