The Austrian Data Protection Authority has imposed an 18 Million Euro fine on Post AG for violating GDPR by processing personal information of individuals to create statistical probabilities about political party affinity and using them for marketing purposes.
Under GDPR. political affiliation is a “special category” personal data, the processing of which is deemed more sensitive and is subject to additional obligations.
Processing political information in the context of marketing has been addressed in depth recently both by the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office and by the European Data Protection Board. Both state that in most circumstances, you should not use special category data, inferred or otherwise, to target individuals with political messaging without the explicit consent of the individual.