On Wednesday 5 September at a press conference, the European Commissioner for Justice, Věra Jourová, confirmed the publication next week of a package of measures to tackle online voter manipulation and the abusive use of personal data for political purposes.
The Commissioner announced “We will adopt a package next week concerning upcoming elections. It will be focused on European elections but, in fact, it is applicable to all elections in the Member states”.
It should be recalled that the contents of the package of measures were partly revealed at the end of August in the press (see EUROPE 12082) and are expected to amend existing rules on the funding of European political parties and possibly impose fines on parties that use the personal data of voters abusively in order to influence elections.
Ms Jourová explained “We will recommend Member States to guarantee that the strict GDPR rules will be applied in the period before the elections and it concerns the Member states role in it, the political parties' role in it, and also of course the citizens who should maybe pay more attention to what’s happening to them”. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)