EU fundamental rights and democracy implications of data-driven political campaigns

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of data-driven political campaigns on fundamental rights and democracy in the European Union. It demonstrates that such campaigns risk curtailing a number of rights and freedoms enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. They can affect voters’ right to respect for private life and protection of personal data (Articles 7 and 8 Charter) through the collection of massive amounts of personal data that serve as the base for profiling of voters. Moreover, they can restrain freedom of information of voters (Article 11 Charter) by providing them only partial information about campaigns of political parties. Furthermore, political manipulation stemming from targeted political advertising may affect the freedom of elections (Article 39(2) Charter), even though it might be a step too far to assert that the use of data-driven political campaigns undoubtedly leads to elections that are not ‘free’. Finally, the author cautions that it might be challenging to rely on the foundational legal category of democracy from Article 2 TEU, given that this provision needs to be given a concrete expression through another Treaty provision. Rather, in case of manipulative data-driven political campaigns, democracy as a value can be affected.