You are trying to check and buy (or just window shop) a few items online. For instance a watch, or a new phone. And suddenly, you see that your whole web browsing is cluttered with advertisements about watches and phones. Not just that, your social media handles too have now started showing you similar advertisements.
In today’s digital world that we live and breathe in, this phenomenon is called tracking advertisements or as The New York Times calls them: the “stalker ads”. These advertisements are clear proof of how invasive and anti-privacy online marketing and advertising tools have become.
How do they do it?
Tracking technologies like web cookies are collecting information from nearly every site you visit—many webpages have multiple, sometimes dozens of cookies embedded in them. Then marketers and ad tech companies compile that data to target you across your devices. Trackers are now so advanced that they can even tell if you decided to hold off on a purchase, and so they send ads to chase you around until you buy.
Why does this Board want a ban on such ads?
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has warned that an upcoming EU digital law can put individuals’ fundamental rights and freedoms at risk, calling on legislators to implement stricter regulations on targeted advertising or tracking advertisements by the big internet and social media firms.
In a statement, the EDPB said that online targeted advertising should be regulated more strictly in the Digital Services Act (DSA) in favour of less intrusive forms of advertising that do not require any tracking of users’ data.
It urged the lawmakers to consider a phase-out leading to a prohibition of targeted advertising on the basis of pervasive tracking while the “profilihe European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has warned that an upcoming EU digital law can put individuals’ fundamental rights and freedoms at risk, calling on legislators to implement stricter regulations on targeted advertising by the big internet and social media firms.
In a statement, the EDPB said that online targeted advertising should be regulated more strictly in the Digital Services Act (DSA) in favour of less intrusive forms of advertising that do not require any tracking of users’ data.
It urged the lawmakers to consider a phase-out leading to a prohibition of targeted advertising on the basis of pervasive tracking while the “profiling of children should overall be prohibited”.
The new proposals aim to facilitate the further use and sharing of (personal) data between more public and private parties inside ‘the data economy’, to support the use of specific technologies such as Big Data and AI and to regulate online platforms and gatekeepers.
“The combined effect of the adoption and implementation of the proposals will therefore significantly impact the protection of the fundamental rights to privacy and to the protection of personal data,” the board stated.
The EU’s data protection adviser said that, without further amendments, the proposals will negatively impact the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals and lead to significant legal uncertainty that would undermine both the existing and future legal framework.
The regulation on a European approach for Artificial Intelligence (AIR) currently allows for the use of real-time remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for the purpose of law enforcement in certain cases.
According to EDPB, the AIR should include a ban on any use of AI for an automated recognition of human features in publicly accessible spaces – such as of faces but also of gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, keystrokes and other biometric or behavioural signals — in any context.ng of children should overall be prohibited”.
The new proposals aim to facilitate the further use and sharing of (personal) data between more public and private parties inside ‘the data economy’, to support the use of specific technologies such as Big Data and AI and to regulate online platforms and gatekeepers.
“The combined effect of the adoption and implementation of the proposals will therefore significantly impact the protection of the fundamental rights to privacy and to the protection of personal data,” the board stated.
The EU’s data protection adviser said that, without further amendments, the proposals will negatively impact the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals and lead to significant legal uncertainty that would undermine both the existing and future legal framework.
The regulation on a European approach for Artificial Intelligence (AIR) currently allows for the use of real-time remote biometric identification systems in publicly accessible spaces for the purpose of law enforcement in certain cases.
According to EDPB, the AIR should include a ban on any use of AI for an automated recognition of human features in publicly accessible spaces – such as of faces but also of gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, keystrokes and other biometric or behavioural signals — in any context.
