‘Cambridgenalization’ in Politics? The Spanish Act 3/2018, December 5, Data Protection Regulation and the Future of Democracy

The Internet’s controversial nature accentuates the need to incorporate useful methods of analysis. Examining how the Internet’s core power structures are built and behave is a surprisingly complex endeavor. This paper explores the Spanish Act 3/2018, December 5, Data Protection Regulation and Digital Rights and an amendment, which allowed political parties to use personal data obtained from web pages and other digital open sources to carry out political activities in the electoral campaigns. Attorneys and NGOs denounced this regulation that helped political parties to profile citizens depending on their ideologies. Political parties could carry out practices like those of Cambridge Analytica—a former British-based data corporation accused of having collected the data of millions of Facebook users without their permission to hit floating voters in the US with pro-Trump adverts. Finally, the Spanish Constitutional Court ruled that such practices could lead to ideological profiling of citizens, which would undermine the very foundations of the Constitution and democracy. The decision of the Spanish Constitutional Court that unanimously declared contrary to the Constitution and void section 1 of art. 58 bis of the Election Law put a limit on politicians’ attempts to erode democracy. In this case, the rule of law was safeguarded and the individual rights saved. The fact is that the possibilities technology provides situate us within a web of knowingly-constructed power relationships which law cannot afford to ignore. The paper aims to analyze the Spanish act in order to lay bare the conceptual roots of the tension between democracy and globalization as well as the legal and political impact of the Internet. An honest debate regarding what exactly we expect out of the Internet has become of great urgency; we must submit the Internet to a real, participative, democratic process—something which has yet to occur. What do we stand to gain? And, perhaps more importantly, what do we stand to lose? Will limits also be imposed on private corporations in favor of basic rights? What is actually happening with democracy and human rights? These are questions that have very real repercussions for us all. When we devote too much of our time and attention to our screens, we may be losing sight of our immediate environment, thereby significantly hampering our ability to take advantage of the opportunities that arise.