Spanish Data Watchdog Orders Suspension Of Meta Products For European Elections

Meta launches election tools on Facebook and Instagram for EU (photo: dock. meta)

JAKARTA - Spain's data protection watchdog, AEPD, has ordered a temporary suspension of two Meta products scheduled to be launched in the upcoming European elections on its social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, as announced on Friday, May 31.

The tools, named "Election Day Information" (EDI) and "Voter Information Unit" (VIU), have the potential to violate Spanish data protection regulations (GDPR), said AEPD.

"Our election tools are specifically designed to respect user privacy and comply with the GDPR. Although we disagree with AEPD's assessment in this case, we have teamed up with their request," a Meta spokesperson said.

According to the agency, Meta said that all eligible Instagram and Facebook users in the European Union would receive notifications from VIU and EDI reminding them to vote.

"The data processing planned by Meta will go against Spanish data protection regulations and at least violate the principles of data protection on the legality, data minimization, and storage period restrictions," the AEPD said in a statement.

It added that Meta selected eligible voters based on the data contained in the user profile of the city they live in, as well as their IP address. However, the only requirement to be allowed to vote in European elections is to become an adult citizen of any EU member country.

AEPD said that this data treatment was "unnecessary, disproportionate, and excessive" because it excluded EU citizens living abroad and targeting citizens from non-EU countries living in Europe.

The agency added that data collection on user age cannot be justified, as there is no reliable mechanism for verifying self-reported age, and treatment of interaction data "completely disproportionate in relation to the goals intended to provide information about elections".

The watchdog said Meta had not confirmed the need for data storage after the election, which "explained additional purposes for processing operations".