Considerations on COM(2021)731 - Transparency and targeting of political advertising - Main contents
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This page contains a limited version of this dossier in the EU Monitor.
| dossier | COM(2021)731 - Transparency and targeting of political advertising. |
|---|---|
| document | COM(2021)731  |
| date | March 13, 2024 |
(2) Political advertising can be disseminated or published through various means and media across borders. It can be disseminated or published via traditional offline media such as newspapers, television and radio, and also increasingly via online platforms, websites, mobile applications, computer games and other digital interfaces. The latter are not only particularly prone to be offered cross-border, but also raise novel and difficult regulatory and enforcement challenges. The use of online political advertising is strongly increasing, and certain linear offline forms of political advertising, such as radio and television, are also offered online as on-demand services. Political advertising campaigns tend to be organised to make use of a range of media and forms.
(3) Given that it is normally provided against remuneration, advertising, including political advertising, constitutes a service activity under Article 57 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’). In Declaration No 22, regarding persons with a disability, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Conference of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States agreed that, in drawing up measures under Article 114 of the TFEU, the institutions of the Union are to take account of the needs of persons with disabilities.
(4) The need to ensure transparency is a legitimate public goal, in conformity with the values shared by the EU and its Member States pursuant to Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (‘TEU’). It is not always easy for citizens to recognise political advertisements and exercise their democratic rights in an informed manner. A high level of transparency is necessary, among others, to support an open and fair political debate and free and fair elections or referendums and to combat disinformation and unlawful interference including from abroad. Political advertising can be a vector of disinformation in particular where the advertising does not disclose its political nature, and where it is targeted. Transparency of political advertising contributes to enabling voters to better understand when they are being presented with a political advertisement on whose behalf that advertisement is being made, and how they are being targeted by an advertising service provider, so that voters are better placed to make informed choices.
(5) In the context of political advertising, targeting techniques are frequently used. Targeting or amplification techniques should be understood as techniques that are used either to address a tailored political advertisement only to a specific person or group of persons or to increase the circulation, reach or visibility of a political advertisement. Given the power and the potential for the misuse of personal data of targeting, including through microtargeting and other advanced techniques, such techniques may present particular threats to legitimate public interests, such as fairness, equal opportunities and transparency in the electoral process and the fundamental right to be informed in an objective, transparent and pluralistic way.
(6) Political advertising is currently regulated heterogeneously in the Member States, which in many cases tends to focus on traditional media forms. Specific restrictions exist including on cross-border provisions of political advertising services. Some Member States prohibit EU service providers established in other Member States from providing services of a political nature or with a political purpose during electoral periods. At the same time, gaps and loopholes in national legislation are likely to exist in some Member States resulting in political advertising sometimes being disseminated without regard to relevant national rules and thus risking undermining the objective of transparency regulation for political advertising.
(7) To provide enhanced transparency of political advertising including to address citizens' concerns, some Member States have already explored or are considering additional measures to address the transparency of political advertising and to support a fair political debate and free and fair elections or referendums. These national measures are in particular considered for advertising published and disseminated online and may include further prohibitions. These measures vary from soft to binding measures and imply different elements of transparency.
(8) This situation leads to the fragmentation of the internal market, decreases legal certainty for providers of political advertising services preparing, placing, publishing or disseminating political advertisements, creates barriers to the free movement of related services, distorts competition in the internal market, including between offline and online service providers, and requires complex compliance efforts and additional costs for relevant service providers.
(9) In this context, providers of political advertising services are likely to be discouraged from providing their political advertising services in cross-border situations. This is particularly true for microenterprises and SMEs, which often do not have the resources to absorb or pass on the high compliance costs connected to the preparation, placement, publication or dissemination of political advertising in more than one Member State. This limits the availability of services and negatively impacts the possibility for service providers to innovate and offer multi-medium and multi-national campaigns within the internal market.
(10) A consistent and high level of transparency of political advertising throughout the Union should therefore be ensured when political advertising services are provided, while divergences hampering the free circulation of related services within the internal market should be prevented, by laying down uniform transparency obligations for providers of political advertising services guaranteeing the uniform protection of rights of persons and supervision throughout the internal market based on Article 114 of the TFEU.
(11) Member States should not maintain or introduce, in their national laws, provisions diverging from those laid down in this Regulation, in particular more or less stringent provisions to ensure a different level of transparency in political advertising. Full harmonisation of the transparency requirements linked to political advertisement increases legal certainty and reduces the fragmentation of the obligations that service providers meet in the context of political advertising.
(12) Full harmonisation of the transparency requirements should be without prejudice to the freedom of providers of political advertising services to provide on a voluntary basis further information on political advertising, as part of the freedom of expression protected under Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
(13) This Regulation should not affect the substantive content of political advertising nor rules regulating the display of political advertising including so-called silence periods preceding elections or referendums.
(14) The Regulation should provide for harmonised transparency requirement applicable to economic actors providing political advertising and related services (i.e. activities that are normally provided for remuneration); those services consist in particular of the preparation, placement, promotion, publication and dissemination of political advertising. The rules of this Regulation that provide for a high level of transparency of political advertising services are based on Article 114 of the TFEU. This Regulation should also address the use of targeting and amplification techniques in the context of the publication, dissemination or promotion of political advertising that involve the processing of personal data. The rules of this Regulation that address the use of targeting and amplification are based on Article 16 of the TFEU. Political advertising directed to individuals in a Member State should include advertising entirely prepared, placed or published by service providers established outside the Union but disseminated to individuals in the Union. To determine whether a political advertisement is directed to individuals in a Member State, account should be taken of factors linking it to that Member State, including language, context, objective of the advertisement and its means of dissemination.
(15) There is no existing definition of political advertising or political advertisement at Union level. A common definition is needed to establish the scope of application of the harmonised transparency obligations and rules on targeting and amplification. This definition should cover the many forms that political advertising can take and any means and mode of publication or dissemination within the Union, regardless of whether the source is located within the Union or in a third country.
(16) The definition of political advertising should include advertising published or disseminated directly or indirectly by or published or disseminated directly or indirectly for or on behalf of a political actor. Since advertisements by, for or on behalf of a political actor cannot be detached from their activity in their role as political actor, they can be presumed to be liable to influence the political debate, except for messages of purely private or purely commercial nature.
(17) The publication or dissemination by other actors of a message that is liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour should also constitute political advertising. In order to determine whether the publication or dissemination of a message is liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour, account should be taken of all relevant factors such as the content of the message, the language used to convey the message, the context in which the message is conveyed, the objective of the message and the means by which the message is published or disseminated. Messages on societal or controversial issues may, as the case may be, be liable to influence the outcome of an election or referendum, a legislative or regulatory process or voting behaviour.
(18) Practical information from official sources regarding the organisation and modalities for participation in the elections or referendums should not constitute political advertising.
(19) Political views expressed in the programmes of audiovisual linear broadcasts or published in printed media without direct payment or equivalent remuneration should not be covered by this Regulation.
(20) For the purpose of this Regulation, election should be understood as the elections to the European Parliament as well as all elections or referendums organised at national, regional and local level in the Member States and elections to establish political party leadership. It should not include other forms of elections such as privately organised ballots.
(21) It is necessary to define political advertisement as an instance of political advertising. Advertisements include the means by which the advertising message is communicated, including in print, by broadcast media or via an online platforms service.
(22) Political actors within the meaning of this Regulation should refer to concepts defined under Union law, as well as under national law in line with international legal instruments such as those of the Council of Europe. The concept of political parties should include their affiliated and subsidiary entities established, with or without legal personality, in order to support them or pursue their objectives, for instance by engaging with a specific group of voters or for a specific electoral purpose.
(23) The concept of political actors should also include unelected officials, elected officials, candidates and members of Government at European, national, regional or local level. Other political organisations should also be included in that definition.
(24) An advertising campaign should refer to the preparation, publication and dissemination of a series of linked advertisements in the course of a contract for political advertising, on the basis of common preparation, sponsorship and funding. It should include the preparation, placement, promotion, publication and dissemination of an advertisement or versions of an advertisement on different media and at different times within the same electoral cycle.
(25) The definition of political advertising should not affect national definitions of political party, political aims or campaign periods at national level.
(26) In order to cover the broad range of relevant service providers connected to political advertising services, providers of political advertising services should be understood as comprising providers involved in the preparation, placement, promotion, publication and dissemination of political advertising.
(27) The notion of political advertising services should not include messages that are shared by individuals in their purely personal capacity. Individuals should not be considered as acting in their personal capacity if they are publishing messages the dissemination or publication of which is paid for by another.
(28) Once an advertisement is indicated as being connected to political advertising, this should be clearly indicated to other service providers involved in the political advertising services. In addition, once an advertisement has been identified as political advertisement, its further dissemination should still comply with transparency requirements. For instance, when sponsored content is shared organically, the advertising should still be labelled as political advertising.
(29) The rules on transparency laid down in this Regulation should only apply to political advertising services, i.e. political advertising that is normally provided against remuneration, which may include a benefit in kind. The transparency requirements should not apply to content uploaded by a user of an online intermediary service, such as an online platform, and disseminated by the online intermediary service without consideration for the placement, publication or dissemination for the specific message, unless the user has been remunerated by a third party for the political advertisement.
(30) The transparency requirements should also not apply to the sharing of information through electronic communication services such as electronic message services or telephone calls, as long as no political advertising service is involved.
(31) Freedom of expression as protected by Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights covers an individual’s right to hold political opinions, receive and impart political information and share political ideas. Every limitation to it has to comply with Article 52 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and that freedom can be subject to modulations and restrictions where they are justified by the pursuit of a legitimate public interest and comply with the general principles of EU law, such as proportionality and legal certainty. That is inter alia the case where the political ideas are communicated through advertising service providers.
(32) As regards online intermediaries, Regulation (EU) 2021/XX [Digital Services Act] applies to political advertisements published or disseminated by online intermediaries through horizontal rules applicable to all types of online advertising, including commercial and political advertisements. Based on the definition of political advertising established in this Regulation, it is appropriate to provide additional granularity of the transparency requirements laid out for advertising publishers falling under the scope of Regulation (EU) 2021/XX [Digital Services Act], notably very large platforms. This concerns in particular information related to the funding of political advertisements. The requirements of this Regulation leave unaffected the provisions of the Digital Services Act, including as regards risk assessment and mitigation obligations for very large online platforms as regards their advertising systems.
(33) The preparation, placement, promotion, publication and dissemination of political advertising can involve a complex chain of service providers. This is the case in particular where the selection of advertising content, the selection of targeting criteria, the provision of data used for the targeting of an advertisement, the provisions of targeting techniques, the delivery of an advertisement and its dissemination may be controlled by different service providers. For instance, automated services can support matching the profile of the user of an interface with the advertising content provided, using personal data collected directly from the user of the service and from the users’ online conduct, as well as inferred data.
(34) In view of the importance of guaranteeing in particular the effectiveness of the transparency requirements including to ease their oversight, providers of political advertising services should ensure that the relevant information they collect in the provision of their services, including the indication that an advertisement is political, is provided to the political advertising publisher which brings the political advertisement to the public. In order to support the efficient implementation of this requirement, and the timely and accurate provision of this information, providers of political advertising services should consider and support automating the transmission of information among providers of political advertising services.
(35) Where an artificial commercial or contractual construction risks circumventing the effectiveness of the transparency obligations laid down in the Regulation, those obligations should apply to the entity or entities that in substance provide the advertising service.
(36) Steps could also include providing an efficient mechanism for individuals to indicate that a political advertisement is political, and taking effective action in response to such indications.
(37) While providing for specific requirements, none of the obligations laid down in this Regulation should be understood as imposing a general monitoring obligation on intermediary service providers for political content shared by natural or legal persons, nor should they be understood as imposing a general obligation on intermediary service providers to take proactive measures in relation to illegal content or activities which those providers transmit or store.
(38) Transparency of political advertising should enable citizens to understand that they are confronted with a political advertisement. Political advertising publishers should ensure the publication in connection to each political advertisement of a clear statement to the effect that it is a political advertisement and of the identity of its sponsor. Where appropriate, the name of the sponsor could include a political logo. Political advertising publishers should make use of labelling which is effective, taking into account developments in relevant scientific research and best practice on the provision of transparency through the labelling of advertising. They should also ensure the publication in connection to each political advertisement of information to enable the wider context of the political advertisement and its aims to be understood, which can either be included in the advertisement itself, or be provided by the publisher on its website, accessible through a link or equivalent clear and user-friendly direction included in the advertisement.
(39) This information should be provided in a transparency notice which should also include the identity of the sponsor, in order to support accountability in the political process. The place of establishment of the sponsor and whether the sponsor is a natural or legal person should be clearly indicated. Personal data concerning individuals involved in political advertising, unrelated to the sponsor or other involved political actor should not be provided in the transparency notice. The transparency notice should also contain information on the dissemination period, any linked election, the amount spent for and the value of other benefits received in part or full exchange for the specific advertisement as well for the entire advertising campaign, the source of the funds used and other information to ensure the fairness of the dissemination of the political advertisement. Information on the source of the funds used concerns for instance its public or private origin, the fact that it originates from inside or outside the European Union. Information concerning linked elections or referendums should include, when possible, a link to information from official sources regarding the organisation and modalities for participation or for promoting participation in those elections or referendums. The transparency notice should further include information on how to flag political advertisements in accordance with the procedure established in this Regulation. This requirement should be without prejudice to provisions on notification according to Article 14, 15 and 19 of Regulation (EU) 2021/XXX [Digital Services Act].
(40) The information to be included in the transparency notice should be provided in the advertisement itself or be easily retrievable on the basis of an indication provided in the advertisement. The requirement that the information about the transparency notice is to be inter alia clearly visible should entail that it features prominently in or with the advertisement. The requirement that information published in the transparency notice is to be easily accessible, machine readable where technically possible, and user friendly should entail that it addresses the needs of people with disabilities. Annex I of Directive 2019/882 (European Accessibility Act) contains accessibility requirements for information, including digital information that should be used to render political information accessible for persons with disabilities.
(41) Transparency notices should be designed to raise user awareness and help the clear identification of the political advertisement as such. They should be designed to remain in place or remain accessible in the event a political advertisement is further disseminated for instance posted on another platform or forwarded between individuals. The information included in the transparency notice should be published when the publication of the political advertisements start and be retained for a period of one year after the last publication. The retained information should also include information about political advertising which was terminated or which was taken down by the publisher.
(42) Since political advertising publishers make political advertisements available to the public, they should publish or disseminate that information to the public together with the publication or dissemination of the political advertisement. Political advertising publishers should not make available to the public those political advertisements not fulfilling the transparency requirements under this Regulation. In addition, political advertising publishers which are very large online platforms within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2021/XXX [Digital Services Act] should make the information contained in the transparency notice available through the repositories of advertisements published pursuant to Article 30 Regulation [Digital Services Act] . This will facilitate the work of interested actors including researchers in their specific role to support free and fair elections or referendums and fair electoral campaigns including by scrutinising the sponsors of political advertisement and analysing the political advertisement landscape.
(43) Where the provider of the political advertising service which hosts or otherwise stores and provides the content of a political advertisement is separate from the provider of the political advertising service which controls the website or other interface which eventually displays the political advertisement, these should be considered together as advertising publishers, with respective responsibility in respect of the specific service they provide, to ensure that labelling is provided and that the transparency notice and relevant information is available. Their contractual arrangements should reflect the way they organise compliance with this Regulation.
(44) Information about the amounts spent on and the value of other benefits received in part or full exchange for political advertising services can usefully contribute to the political debate. It is necessary to ensure that an appropriate overview of political advertising activity can be obtained from the annual reports prepared by relevant political advertising publishers. To support oversight and accountability, such reporting should include information about expenditure on the targeting of political advertising in the relevant period, aggregated to campaign or candidate. To avoid disproportionate burdens, those transparency reporting obligations should not apply to enterprises qualifying under Article 3(3) of Directive 2013/34/EU.
(45) Political advertising publishers providing political advertising services should put in place mechanisms to enable individuals to report to them that a particular political advertisement which they have published does not comply with this Regulation. The mechanisms to report such advertisement should be easy to access and use, and should be adapted to the form of advertising distributed by the advertising publisher. As far as possible, these mechanisms should be accessible from the advertisement itself, for instance on the advertising publisher’s website. Political advertising publishers should be able to rely on existing mechanisms where appropriate . Where political advertising publishers are online hosting services providers within the meaning of the Digital Services Act, with regards to the political advertisements hosted at the request of the recipients of their services, the provisions of Article 14 of the Digital Services Act continue to apply for notifications concerning non-compliance of such advertisements with this Regulation.
(46) In order to allow specific entities to play their role in democracies, it is appropriate to lay down rules on the transmission of information published with the political advertisement or contained in the transparency notice to interested actors such as vetted researchers, journalists, civil society organisations and accredited election observers, in order to support the performance of their respective roles in the democratic process. Providers of political advertising services should not be required to respond to requests which are manifestly unfounded or excessive. Further, the relevant service provider should be allowed to charge a reasonable fee in case of repetitive and costly requests, taking into account the administrative costs of providing the information.
(47) Personal data collected directly from individuals, or indirectly such as inferred data, when grouping individuals according to their assumed interests or derived through their online activity, behavioural profiling and other analysis techniques, is increasingly used to target political messages to groups or individual voters or individuals, and to amplify their impact. On the basis of the processing of personal data, in particular data considered sensitive under Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council 11 and Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 of the European Parliament and of the Council 12 , different groups of voters or individuals can be segmented and their characteristics or vulnerabilities exploited for instance by disseminating the advertisements at specific moments and in specific places designed to take advantage of the instances where they would be sensitive to a certain kind of information/message. That has specific and detrimental effects on citizens’ fundamental rights and freedoms with regard to the processing of their personal data and their freedom to receive objective information, to form their opinion, to make political decisions and exercise their voting rights. This negatively impacts the democratic process. Additional restrictions and conditions compared to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 should be provided. The conditions set out in this Regulation on the use of targeting and amplification techniques involving the processing of personal data in the context of political advertising should be based on Article 16 TFEU.
(48) Targeting and amplification techniques in the context of political advertising involving the processing of data referred to in Article 9(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 10(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 should therefore be prohibited. The use of such techniques should only be allowed when carried out by the controller, or someone acting on its behalf, on the basis of the explicit consent of the data subject or in the course of their legitimate activities with appropriate safeguards by a foundation, association or any other not-for-profit body with a political, philosophical or religious or trade union aim and on condition that the processing relates solely to the members or to former members of the body or to persons who have regular contact with it in connection with its purposes and that the personal data are not disclosed outside that body without the consent of the data subjects. This should be accompanied by specific safeguards. Consent should be understood as consent within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Regulation (EU) 2018/1725. Therefore, it should not be possible to rely on the exceptions as laid down in Article 9(2), points(b), (c), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i) and (j) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Article 10(2), points(b), (c), (e), (f), (g), (h), (i) and (j) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 respectively for using techniques targeting and amplification techniques to publish, promote or disseminate political advertising involving the processing of personal data referred to in Article 9(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and 10(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/725.
(49) In order to ensure enhanced transparency and accountability, when making use of targeting and amplification techniques in the context of political advertising involving the processing of personal data, controllers should implement additional safeguards. They should adopt and implement a policy describing the use of such techniques to target individuals or amplify their content and keep record of their relevant activities. When publishing, promoting or disseminating a political advertisement making use of targeting and amplification techniques, controllers should provide, together with the political advertisement, meaningful information to allow the concerned individual to understand the logic involved and main parameters of the targeting used, and the use of third-party data and additional analytical techniques, including whether the targeting of the advertisement was further optimised during delivery.
(50) Political advertising publishers making use of targeting or amplification techniques should include in their transparency notice information necessary to allow the concerned individual to understand the logic involved and main parameters of the technique used, and the use of third-party data and additional analytical techniques used and a link to the relevant policy of the controller. In case the controller is different from the advertising publisher the controller should transmit to political advertising publisher the internal policy or a reference to it. Providers of advertising services should, as necessary, transmit to the political advertising publisher the information necessary to comply with their obligations under this Regulation. The provision of such information could be automated and integrated in the ordinary business processes on the basis of standards.
(51) In order to further empower individuals to exercise their data protection rights, political advertising publishers should provide additional information and effective tools to the concerned data subject to support the exercise of their rights under the EU data protection legal framework including to object or withdraw their consent when targeted with a political advertisement. This information should also be easily accessible directly from the transparency notice. The tools made available to the individuals to support the exercise of their rights should be effective to prevent an individual from being targeted with political advertisements, as well as to prevent targeting on the basis of specific criteria and by one or several specific controllers.
(52) The Commission should encourage the drawing up of codes of conduct as referred to in Article 40 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 to support the exercise of data subjects’ rights in this context.
(53) Information to be provided in accordance with all requirements applicable to the use of targeting and amplification techniques under this Regulation should be presented in a format which is easily accessible, clearly visible and user-friendly, including through the use of plain language.
(54) It is appropriate to lay down rules on the transmission of information on targeting to other interested entities. The applicable regime should be consistent with the regime for the transmission of information linked to the transparency requirements.
(55) Providers of political advertising services established in a third country that offer services in the Union should designate a mandated legal representative in the Union to allow for effective oversight of this Regulation in relation to those providers. The legal representative could be the one designated on the basis of Article 27 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679) or the representative designated on the basis of Article 11 of Regulation (EU) 2021/xxx [the DSA].
(56) In the interest of the effective supervision of this Regulation, it is necessary to entrust oversight authorities with the competence to monitor and enforce the relevant rules. Depending on the legal system of each Member State and in line with existing Union law including Regulation (EU) 2016/679 and Regulation (EU) 2021/xxx [Digital Services Act], different national judicial or administrative authorities may be designated to that effect.
(57) As regards the supervision of online intermediary services under this Regulation, Member States should designate competent authorities and ensure that such supervision is coherent with the competent authorities designated pursuant to Article 38 of Regulation (EU) [Digital Services Act]. Digital Services Coordinators, pursuant to Regulation (EU) Digital Services Act, in each Member State should in any event be responsible for ensuring coordination at national level in respect to those matters and engage, where necessary, cross-border cooperation with other Digital Services Coordinators following the mechanisms laid down in Regulation (EU) [Digital Services Act]. In the framework of application of this Regulation, this mechanism should be limited to the national cooperation across Digital Services Coordinators [and should not include the escalation to the Union level as provided by the Regulation (EU) [Digital Services Act].
(58) For the oversight of those aspects of this Regulation that do not fall within the competence of the supervisory authorities under Regulation (EU) 2016/679, Regulation (EU) 2018/725 Member States should designate competent authorities. To support the upholding of fundamental rights and freedoms, the rule of law, democratic principles and public confidence in the oversight of political advertising it is necessary that such authorities are structurally independent from external intervention or political pressure and are appropriately empowered effectively monitor and take the measures necessary to ensure compliance with this Regulation, in particular the obligations laid down in Article 7. Member States may designate, in particular, the national regulatory authorities or bodies under Article 30 of Directive 2010/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council 13 .
(59) Where rules already exist under Union law regarding the provision of information to competent authorities and cooperation with and between those authorities such as Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2021/xxx [Digital Services Act], or those contained in Regulation (EU) 2016/679, those rules should apply mutatis mutandis to the relevant provisions of this Regulation.
(60) Authorities competent for the oversight of this Regulation should cooperate with each other both at national and at EU level making best use of existing structures including national cooperation networks, the European Cooperation Network on Elections as referred to in Recommendation C(2018) 5949 final, and the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services established under Directive 2010/13/EU. Such cooperation should facilitate the swift, secured exchange of information on issues connected to the exercise of their supervisory and enforcements tasks pursuant to this Regulation, including by jointly identifying infringements, sharing findings and expertise, and liaising on the application and enforcement of relevant rules.
(61) With a view to facilitating the effective application of the obligations set out in the regulation, it is necessary to empower national authorities to request from the services providers the relevant information on the transparency of political advertisement. Information to be transmitted to competent authorities could concern an advertising campaign, be aggregated by years or concern specific advertisements. In order to ensure that the requests for such information can be complied with in an effective and efficient manner, and at the same time that the providers of political advertising services are not subject to any disproportionate burdens, it is necessary to set certain conditions that those requests should meet. In the interest of the timely oversight of an election process in particular, providers of political advertising services should quickly respond to requests from competent authorities, and always within 10 working days upon receipt of the measure. In the interest of legal certainty and in compliance with the rights of defence, requests to provide information from a competent authority should contain an adequate statement of reasons and information about available redress. Providers of political advertising services should designate contact points for the interaction with the competent authorities. Such contact points could be electronic.
(62) Member States should designate a contact point at Union level for the purpose of this Regulation. The contact point should, if possible, be a member of the European Cooperation Network on Elections. The contact point should facilitate cooperation among competent authorities between Member States in their supervision and enforcement tasks, in particular by intermediating with the contact points in other Member States and with the competent authorities in their own.
(63) Member States authorities should ensure that infringements of the obligations laid down in this Regulation are sanctioned by administrative fines or financial penalties. When doing so, they should take into account the nature, gravity, recurrence and duration of the infringement in view of the public interest at stake, the scope and kind of activities carried out, as well as the economic capacity of the infringer. In that context, the crucial role played by the obligations laid down in Article 7 for the effective pursuit of the objectives of the present Regulation should be taken into account. Furthermore, they should take into account whether the service provider concerned systematically or recurrently fails to comply with its obligations stemming from this Regulation, including by delaying the provision of information to interested entities, as well as, where relevant, whether the provider of political advertising services is active in several Member States. Financial penalties and administrative fines shall in each individual case be effective, proportionate and dissuasive, with due regard to the provision of sufficient and accessible procedural safeguards, and in particular to ensure that the political debate remains open and accessible.
(64) The exercise by the competent authorities of their powers under this Regulation should be subject to appropriate procedural safeguards in accordance with Union and national law, including effective judicial remedy and due process.
(65) Member States should publish the exact duration of their electoral periods, established according to their electoral traditions, sufficiently in advance of the beginning of the electoral calendar.
(66) In order to fulfil the objectives of this Regulation, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 of the Treaty should be delegated to the Commission in respect of Article 7(7) to further specify the form in which the requirements for the provision of information in the transparency notices according to that Article should be provided; and in respect of Article 12(8) to further specify the form in which the requirements of the provision of information about targeting should be provided. It is of particular importance that the Commission carries out appropriate consultations, including of experts designated by each Member State, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Law-Making of 13 April 2016. In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States' experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.
(67) Within two years after each election to the European Parliament, the Commission should submit a public report on the evaluation and review of this Regulation. In preparing that report the Commission should also take into account the implementation of this Regulation in the context of other elections and referendums taking place in the Union. The report should review inter alia the continued suitability of the provisions of this Regulation’s annexes and consider the need for their revision.
(68) Complementary obligations on the use of political advertising by European political parties are provided in Regulation (EU) 1141/2014 on the statute and funding of European political parties and foundations.
(69) Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely the contribution to the proper functioning of the internal market for political advertising and related services and the establishment of rules on the use of targeting in the context of the publication and dissemination of political advertising, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt this Regulation, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the TEU. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.
(70) This Regulation is without prejudice to the rules laid down in particular by Directive 2000/31/EC, including the liability rules for intermediary service providers in Articles 12 to 15 of that Directive as modified by Regulation (EU) 2021/xxx [the Digital Services Act], Regulation (EU) 2021/xxx [the Digital Markets Act], Directive 2002/58/EC and Regulation (EU) XXX [ePrivacy Regulation], as well as Directive (EU) 2010/13, Directive 2000/31/EC, Directive 2002/58/EC, Directive 2005/29/EC, Directive 2011/83/EU, Directive 2006/114/EC, Directive 2006/123/EC and Regulation (EU) 2019/1150.
(71) The European Data Protection Supervisor was consulted in accordance with Article 42(1) of Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 and delivered an opinion on XX XX 2022.