Just days after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lost the election, Hungary's data protection authority has launched an investigation into the Webloc platform, an Israeli tool that is suspected of using advertising data from mobile phones for mass surveillance purposes.
According to reports, Webloc collects and analyzes mobile advertising data to track users' movements and activity, a practice that may constitute a violation of the European data protection regulation GDPR.
The investigation has also received particular attention due to its political context, as it takes place immediately after the Hungarian election. On election night, US Vice President JD Vance was sent to Budapest to support Orbán, the Donald Trump administration's main ally in Europe.
Hungarian authorities have not yet made public full details of how Webloc was used, but the investigation is expected to verify whether the technology was used for illegal surveillance or for political purposes during the election process.
