Just days ahead of Italy's general election, the country's privacy watchdog took an urgent request for information to Meta, the parent of Facebook, and sought information from the social media giant regarding steps it is taking in relation to Sunday's election.

The risk of election interference via social media continues to weigh heavily on regulators' minds as awareness has continued to rise about how disinformation is seeded, spread, and amplified on algorithmic platforms like Facebook, and democratic processes continue to be seen as the core target of malicious influence ops.

The European Union also watches out for the processing of personal data across the platforms, which will lead to the amendment of the law to govern the processing of sensitive data, including political opinions.

In a press release regarding its request yesterday, the Garante points back to a previous $1.1 million sanction it imposed on Facebook for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and for the "Candidates" project Facebook launched for Italy's 2018 general election, writing in Italian; translated here using machine translation that "it is necessary to give particular attention to processing data fit to reveal the political opinions of the interested parties and to respect free expression of thought.".

"Facebook will have to provide timely information on the initiative undertaken; on the nature and methods of data processing on any agreements aimed at sending reminders and the publication of information 'stickers' (also published on Instagram — part of the Meta Group); on the measures taken to ensure, as announced, that the initiative is brought to the attention only of persons of legal age," the watchdog adds.

The move comes amid what it describes as an "information campaign" by Meta, targeted at Italian users, said to be aimed at countering interference and removing content that discourages voting — and involving the use of a virtual Operations Center to identify potential threats in real time, as well as collaboration with independent fact-checking organizations.

The Garante said that it had made this campaign public, by Meta publishing "promemoria" (memos). But a page on Meta's website which describes information about the company's preparations for an array of upcoming elections currently only makes downloadable documents about its approach for the US midterms and for Brazil's elections. No word there about the company's approach to Italy's general election — or anything else about the information campaign it is apparently running locally.

A separate page on Meta's website — headed "election integrity" — features several other articles about its preparations for elections elsewhere, such as Kenya's 2022 general election; the 2022 Philippines' general election; and for Ethiopia's — 2021 — general election. And earlier articles for State elections in India; and an update on the Georgia runoff elections from the end of 2020, among others.

However, once again, Meta does not appear to have provided insight into its preparations for Italy's General Election.

Facebook to pause new political ads a week ahead of US midterm elections

The reason for this oversight—a snap election, called in the wake of a government crisis and prime minister Mario Draghi's resignation, i.e. rather than a scheduled, laid-out general election—had probably to do with:.

But the gap in Meta's election integrity information hub regarding measures it's taking to protect Italy's general election from disinformation suggests there are limits to its transparency on this crucial area — suggesting it's unable to provide consistent transparency in response to what can often be dynamically changing democratic timelines.

The Italian parliament was dissolved on July 21 — that's when the president called for new elections. Which means that Meta, a company with a market cap of hundreds of billions of dollars, has had two months to make upload details of the election integrity measures it's taking in the country to relevant hubs on its website — yet it does not appear to have done so.

We contacted Meta yesterday, asking what the company was doing in Italy to help protect the election from interference; by writing time, it had not responded.

It will of course have to answer to Italy's watchdog's request for information. We have contacted the regulator with our inquiries. Update: A spokesperson said that it learned through media reports about Meta's activity on the Italian elections. "We believe that Meta will provide all the required information and documentation as soon as possible. I can not provide you with more information since it is under the Garante investigation," they added.

The Garante remains an active privacy watchdog in policing tech giants operating on its turf despite not being a lead supervisor for such companies under the one-stop-shop mechanism in the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, which has otherwise led to bottlenecks around GDPR enforcement. However, the rule does provide room for concerned DPAs to move in on hot topics of their own volition without a move by the OSS.

A number of other proactive interventions by Italy's watchdog in recent years have led to yesterday's urgent request to Meta for information — including a warning this summer to TikTok over a controversial privacy policy switch (which TikTok 'paused' shortly after); a warning to WhatsApp in January 2021 over another controversial privacy policy and T&Cs update (although stemming from a more general complaint, WhatsApp went on to be fined $267M later that year over GDPR transparency breaches); and a warning to TikTok over underage users also in January 2021 (TikTok went on remove over half a million accounts that it was unable to confirm did not belong to children and commit to other measures).

So a holistic answer to the question of whether the GDPR is doing enough in regulating Big Tech requires a far broader view than tallying up fines or even settling on final GDPR enforcement decisions.