“We don’t have to manipulate our customers or exploit their vulnerabilities to scale up” – European entrepreneurs and social organizations appeal to the MEPs to put an end to invasive and privacy-hostile practices related to surveillance-based advertising and thus open the market to ethical and innovative online ads, which respect users’ rights and their choices. On the opposite bench – the Big Tech lobby fights for the status quo to remain – despite the well-documented social and individual harms caused by the current ads ecosystem.

Following a number of complaints filed in 2018 and 2019, including by Panoptykon and Bits of Freedom, and coordinated by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Belgian Data Protection Authority has found that the consent system developed and managed by the adtech industry body IAB Europe, and used by many websites in the EU, is illegal under the GDPR.

The report looks at what happens at the interface of Internet service providers and public authorities in Poland. Who sends requests for users data, how many and for what purpose, what legal procedures are followed and what safeguards apply. During our research we analysed legal provisions and collected data from both major Internet service providers and public authorities. On that basis we were able to identify several systemic problems that should be solved in order to ensure adequate standard of protection for individuals.

We have taken part in the public consultations of the draft code of conduct which is supposed to help apply the GDPR to the internet advertising sector. The code was prepared by the Polish office of the Internet Advertising Bureau.

Sharing information is less and less our free choice. The society requires high visibility: those, who don't expose themselves become suspicious or excluded. But sharing is just the beginning. The real purpose behind it is profiling. Be that our insurance or health care scheme, unemployment benefit or school curriculum – more and more services depend not so much on who we are in reality, but on the quality of our digital profile. Who designs these algorithms? What business and political stakes are behind? Katarzyna Szymielewicz comments on contents of our digital profiles and its implications.