Streaming Platforms and Profiling

Abstract

This contribution aims to address risks and opportunities for cultural diversity resulting from ‎platforms’ personalisation tools based on a legal analysis of the main provisions of the European Union‎ General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on consumer profiling and automated decisions, as well as ‎a sample of data protection policies of selected streaming platforms. It examines how the latter may in‎ practice affect the protection of consumers’ personal data for the purpose of recommending personalised ‎audio-visual and music content online and how such provisions relate to the discoverability of a‎ diversified cultural offer online and, at the European level, the obligation for platforms to give prominence‎ to European works in their catalogues. The paper shows that a lot may still be done to improve the‎ transparency of algorithms used for personalisation purposes and to provide users with greater control of‎ their data, as required by the GDPR.‎