The Ombudsman uses the law that guarantees electoral 'spam' | Society

The Ombudsman has responded to the request of a group of legal experts in data protection and Internet associations against the law that allows parties to collect personal data about political opinions to send personalized electoral propaganda. The organism has communicated on Tuesday the presentation of an appeal of unconstitutionality against the treatment of personal data by political parties, a practice endorsed after the new Organic Law on Data Protection, approved at the end of last year.

The rule, that incorporates a new article, 58 bis, to the Organic Law of General Electoral Regime (Loreg) allows political parties to track web pages and social networks to access personal data and political opinions of citizens. According to the norm, these activities must be covered by the "public interest" and have "adequate guarantees", but it has not prevented the experts from distrusting its application.

The Ombudsman considers that the reform violates several articles of the Constitution. The resource impellers consider that the norm that makes it possible to make ideological profiles and to personalize the electoral propaganda to send spam through personalized emails and also to hire social networks personalized messages for each user violates the right to protection of personal data, the right to ideological freedom, freedom of expression and information and the right to political participation.

The drivers of this resource They argue that accessing users' browsing data is a very powerful tool that gives parties the option of "having sign-ups" for citizens to segment them and distribute electoral advertising on demand. The electoral formations could thus "elaborate blacklists" according to their ideology.

The request to the Ombudsman has been led by lawyers and professors Borja Adsuara, José Luis Piñar, Jorge García Herrero and Elena Gil González, and has had the support of the Platform in Defense of Freedom of Information and the Association of Experts Nationals of the Digital Law, among others.

This request to the Ombudsman came after an intense campaign of several lawyers and associations, under the hashtag #NoConMisDatos, through which they want to raise awareness among citizens of the risks involved in the fact that the parties have access to this information. With this initiative, they encourage people to oppose the processing of their personal data and demand their removal.