As of Oct. 10, 2025, a new European regulation on political advertising will apply. This includes the conditions for being allowed to target people with targeted (targeted) online political advertising. The Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens AP) has created a guide to help organizations comply with these new rules for targeted political advertising.
With a public consultation, the AP is asking (industry) organizations, experts and stakeholders to respond to this guidance.
With the Regulation on Transparency and Targeted Political Advertising (VPR), the legislature aims to prevent voters from being surreptitiously influenced during election campaigns and eroding confidence in fair elections.
As of Oct. 10, the AP is monitoring those articles of the VPR that deal with targeted online political advertising involving the processing of personal data. The AP's guidance does not cover the other articles from the VPR that deal with transparency surrounding the origin of political advertising. For that, the Media Authority has been designated as the regulator.
The VPR includes the requirements that organizations must meet in order to target people with targeted online political advertising, for example through social media. 'Targeted' means that the advertising (does not) reach a particular target group (also called 'targeted ads'). In addition, the VPR also sets requirements for how these organizations provide information about their targeted online political advertising.
The AP believes it is important that organizations using targeting techniques for online political advertising understand the rules they must comply with. And that they also comply with these rules. With this guidance the AP provides information about the rules. And explains how organizations can apply the rules in practice. The guidance is addressed to data controllers under the supervision of the AP.
With this consultation, the AP is inviting (industry) organizations, experts and stakeholders to respond to the guidance. We will use the input to sharpen and improve the guideline.
The AP has these questions:
What do you think of the guidance and does it add value for you?
Are there any parts of the guidance that you think the AP could clarify? If so, what part is this about and what clarification do you need?
Do you have good real-world examples that the AP could incorporate into the guidance?
Besides the use of targeting techniques, do you see other influential(er) methods of influence that involve processing personal data and influence the electoral process?
Do you have other comments for the AP to include in the guidance?
Would you like to respond?
The AP would like to receive your input no later than Nov. 21, 2025. To do so, please send an email to vpr@autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl with your input. In doing so, please indicate specifically which page and passage you are responding to. You can also do this in an attachment in Word or pdf format.
This email address is also the place to go if you have any questions about the document or the consultation process.
After the consultation, the AP publishes a summary of the responses received. In doing so, the AP does not publish names, organizations and contact information.
