Elon Musk's X Faces Complaint Over Ads Targeted On Sensitive Data (Image: Unsplash)

X, the micro-blogging platform, is currently facing a privacy complaint in Europe for unlawfully using the political views and religious beliefs of its users for targeted advertising. The complaint was filed with the Dutch data protection authority by the privacy rights not-for-profit noyb. In the complaint, noyb accuses Elon Musk“s X of failing to enforce its own advertising guidelines.

X, formerly Twitter, collects sensitive data such as political views and religious beliefs by monitoring the behavior of users, including clicks, likes, and replies to postings on the social media platform. However, the advertising guidelines of X indicate that political affiliation and religious beliefs should not be used for ad targeting. The group has accused X of not enforcing the ban. As per the complaint, the EU Commission used this information to promote the highly controversial proposed chat control regulation on the platform during September. The noyb mentioned in its statement that the targeting system of X allowed the Commission to target users based on political views and religious beliefs.

“In November, this unlawful use of micro-targeting already prompted noyb to file a complaint against the EU Commission itself. Now, noyb follows up with a complaint against X,” mentioned the group in its statement. The privacy rights group pointed out that the political opinions and religious beliefs of people are specifically protected under the European Union”s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). They also says that such data categories can only be legally processed under specific circumstances.

In the complaint, noyb says that X has violated the GDPR and the Digital Services Act (DSA). Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at noyb, said that the EU Commission has already confirmed that it will stop advertising on X based on the first complaint.