{"id":5201,"date":"2020-11-26T18:03:32","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T18:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electoral-reform.org.uk\/?p=5201"},"modified":"2020-11-27T16:11:43","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T16:11:43","slug":"why-we-need-transparency-around-the-political-use-of-personal-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electoral-reform.org.uk\/why-we-need-transparency-around-the-political-use-of-personal-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we need transparency around the political use of personal data"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

In recent years, we\u2019ve talked a lot about the rise of online political campaigning and the impact this can have on our democratic processes \u2013 the ERS has been at the forefront of calling for enhanced transparency around online campaigning and for our analogue rules to be updated for the digital age.<\/p>\n

Given how campaigns are conducted online, the focus has rightly been on how we can shed light on online advertising and on party funding and spending in the digital world, and on the role tech companies play in this ecosystem.<\/p>\n

What about personal data?<\/h3>\n

One aspect we don\u2019t talk about as much \u2013 but which is just as important and interrelated with the others \u2013 is how parties themselves are adapting to digital campaigning with regards to their use of personal data. As with most aspects of online campaigning, the usual caveat applies: parties have always made use of people\u2019s personal data for their marketing and campaigning, but this has significantly changed with the rise of online platforms and techniques.<\/p>\n

Data allows parties to interact with voters and engage them in democratic processes, which can increase turnout and participation and, more broadly, have considerable benefits on the health of our society. But the sophisticated and \u2013 to most of us \u2013 opaque ways in which parties can collect, process and use data to target voters and tailor increasingly personalised messages to them need to be considered, as reliance on these techniques is only going to grow in the future.<\/p>\n

This is an area of concern for voters themselves. The Electoral Commission\u2019s research<\/a> following the 2019 general election found that 46 percent of people said that \u2018they were concerned about why and how political ads were targeted at them\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Open Rights Group (ORG) delved into the main political parties\u2019 use of personal data and found that they all made extensive use of personal data to tailor a political relationship with people.<\/a> This included using data to try to guess characteristics such as income, number of children or nationality, and to profile personal information and highly protected special category data, such as religion and political opinions.<\/p>\n

Based on their research, however, the ORG also found that such attempts were generally unsuccessful, and that the accuracy of political profiling done in this way was \u2018extremely poor\u2019.<\/p>\n

Regulating data rules<\/h3>\n

Regardless of accuracy in terms of profiling or persuasion, most voters are in the dark about how parties use their data for political purposes \u2013 shedding light on this issue is essential.<\/p>\n

As the data regulator, the Information Commissioner\u2019s Office (ICO) has been outspoken about the need to enhance transparency, trust and accountability with regards to political use of data so as to ensure confidence in political parties and our democracy more broadly. The ICO first highlighted this issue substantively in their 2018 report<\/a> on personal data and political influence where they flagged the importance of using personal information in ways that are \u2018transparent, understood by people and lawful.\u2019<\/p>\n

As part of this work, the ICO also committed to auditing political parties\u2019 compliance<\/a> with data protection legislation and published its results<\/a> earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Audits of parties\u2019 use of data<\/h3>\n

The ICO\u2019s audits of seven political parties were the first time parties\u2019 compliance with the new data protection legislation was assessed. The regulator highlighted five broad areas for improvement with regards to transparency and lawfulness:<\/p>\n