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We identified movement patterns of several individuals in the data, including a top official from a Commission unit under president von der Leyen, a high-ranking diplomat from an EU member state, employees of the EU Parliament and the European External Action service.
We can see where they live, work, travel, dine, shop and more.
This is not only a large-scale invasion of privacy. In times of global conflict, this kind of intelligence is a gold mine for spies. It "could be exploited by hostile actors to facilitate hybrid activities to harm the democratic society and undermine the decision-making capability of a state," says Kiri Peres from Helsinki-based think tank Hybrid CoE.
It seems “only logical,” she added, that China and Russia would use advertising data for such purposes.
Almost ten years after the EU agreed upon GDPR, our investigation reveals how defenseless it is against ad-tracking & data brokers. The Commission points to data protection authorities in member states, but MEPs like Axel Voss (EPP) &
@alexandrageese (Greens) call for stricter regulation.
In the past though, regulatory approaches such as the #ePrivacy Regulation were successfully opposed by the data industry. Can Europe now find the strength to tackle the problem once and for all?
An international #databrokerfiles investigation with @lemonde
@bnrnieuwsradio @br_data & L'Echo.
Reporting by
@roofjoke & @sebmeineck.
Editorial team: @dleisegang & @annskaja
Special thanks to our former EU correspondent @zarasophos and our new EU correspondent Anna Ströbele Romero for their support in this investigation.
If you're short on time, you can find a summary of our investigation into data brokers endangering Europe's security here #databrokerfiles https://netzpolitik.org/2025/databroker-files-all-you-need-to-know-about-how-adtech-data-exposes-the-eu-to-espionage/
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