The EU wants to stop the next Cambridge Analytica with legislation

The European Commission is working on legislation to prevent another Cambridge Analytica like event reoccurring, especially around the time frame of the European Parliament’s elections.

The legislation would see EU political groups which benefit from data mined from entities like Cambridge Analytica fined up to 5 per cent of their annual budget, according to a report on the draft legislation.

“Attacks on elections and electoral campaigns fall into two main categories: those based on systems and those based on behaviours. The first category includes cyber-attacks that manipulate the electoral process or voting technology to change the number of voters or the number of votes.,” the EU Commissioner for the Security Union Julin King said in the Guardian as he enumerated different ways elections could be attacked.

Microsoft, for its part, has outfitted Office 365 with AccountGuard technology which makes it suitable for political groups to avoid being attacked directly by agencies. However, the program isn’t being offered worldwide just yet.

“Democracy requires vigilance and at times action by citizens to protect and maintain it. No individual or company can hope to meet this imperative by itself,” Microsoft’s Brad Smith said last week. As the European Parliament elections approach next year, let’s hope the firm recognises the world outside the US by then.

Source: The Next Web