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Protecting the election ‘Persuadables’

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31 October 2019 / Malcolm Dowden , Moga Moodley
Issue: 7862 / Categories: Opinion , Technology , Media , Data protection
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With a general election approaching, taking back control of your browser data is essential, say Moga Moodley & Malcolm Dowden

With a 12 December UK general election now in the diary there is a pressing need to consider the risk of electoral influence or manipulation through the harvesting of personal data, highlighted by the 2016 Facebook/Cambridge Analytica (CA) scandal. Political will to avoid such risks might be strengthened by legal exposure stemming from a recent Court of Appeal decision encouraging class actions for breaches of personal data protection which may stem from large-scale profiling activities ((Lloyd v Google LLC [2019] EWCA Civ 1599, [2019] All ER (D) 09 (Oct).

Browser data

Web browsers such as Safari, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer collect and analyse browser data to determine users’: location; websites visited; how much time is spent on those websites; and what searches are made, and how frequently.

Browser data may be accumulated and analysed to build user profiles, identifying behaviour patterns and preferences along with detailed

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