The European Commission released a proposal penalizing groups for misusing voter data to influence elections, Reuters reports. The commission is taking steps to avoid a repeat of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, while ensuring next year’s elections are not affected by malicious actors. The proposal is aimed toward political parties and foundations and could result in fines as high as 5 percent of their annual budget if they were found to have violated data protection rules in order to impact election results. “We must protect our free and fair elections,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who called for “new rules to better protect our democratic processes from manipulation by third countries or private interests.” Editor's Note: Colin Bennett recently discussed the use of personal data by political parties in a post for Privacy Perspectives.
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