The EU's political ad repository is now public

What the repository holds

The European Commission's political advertisement repository is a public database that stores transparency notices for political ads across the EU ^[1]. Each notice shows who sponsored the ad, which entity controls the sponsor, who paid for it and how much was spent. It also shows which election or referendum the ad relates to, and whether targeting was used ^[2].

The repository is searchable by country, election and date. It is built to implement the transparency requirements in Regulation (EU) 2024/900, which has applied since 10 October 2024 ^[2].

Think of it as the receipt drawer for political advertising: a place where anyone can check who paid for an ad and what they spent on it.

What counts as political advertising

The regulation defines political advertising as any message prepared, placed, promoted or disseminated by, for or on behalf of a political actor, or that is likely to influence the outcome of an election or a referendum ^[2]. A political actor includes a party, a candidate, an elected representative and a foundation or think tank controlled by them ^[2].

That definition can sweep in more than traditional campaign ads. An ad about climate policy three months before an election might count, even if it doesn't name a party. The regulation asks sponsors and service providers to judge whether an ad is political and keep records of that judgement ^[2].

Who keeps the records

Sponsors of political ads and providers of political advertising services must ask whether a service relates to political advertising, and keep prescribed information for seven years ^[2]. A service provider includes advertising agencies, PR agencies, political consultants, ad platforms, influencers and publishers ^[2].

When personal data are used for online targeting, the data must have been collected from the person directly, explicit consent to political advertising is required, and no profiling using sensitive personal data like ethnicity, health or political opinions is allowed ^[2].

What this means for you

If you run political ads, or handle them for someone else, here are three questions to ask:

• Do you have a process to decide whether an ad counts as political under the regulation's definition?
• Are you keeping the prescribed information in a way that survives an audit in seven years?
• If you use targeting, can you show that consent was explicit and that no sensitive categories were used?

The repository is public, so any ad you mark as political will show up there. If the information you give turns out to be incomplete or wrong, it will show up too.

How a digital witness fits

Here, the thing to seal is the campaign's paper trail: the brief, a record of each AI generation with the tool, model version and settings used, licences for third-party material, the client's approval and the final versions as published. Sealing happens as each step is completed, and when the campaign goes live.

Your system sends a fingerprint of each record to WitniumChain through the REST API, the SDK or the MCP server, and gets a witness ID back. The record itself never leaves your systems. To check it later, you calculate the fingerprint again and compare it with the sealed one. If they match, the record is unchanged. Change one character and it won't match.

The client, platforms, rights holders, self-regulatory bodies and courts can all check the records you share with them. A sealed record shows that the material existed at that time and was approved in that form. It doesn't show that the campaign was lawful, that a licence was valid or that a disclosure was adequate.

Say a client disputes that they approved the AI-generated version that ran in March. With a sealed record of the approval, you can show what was approved and when. Without it, the question becomes harder to settle.

The first 2,000 witnesses a month are free. Read the documentation to get started.

How it would work

1. Seal the brief, AI generations and client approval as you go.
2. Seal the final versions as published.
3. If someone questions what ran, share the sealed records and let them check the fingerprints.

What to watch

The regulation sets maximum fines of 6 per cent of the sponsor's or service provider's annual income, budget or global turnover ^[2]. National authorities enforce it, and the Commission publishes aggregated data on transparency notices every six months ^[1].

If you run or handle political ads, the seven-year record-keeping duty applies now. The repository is where that duty becomes visible to anyone with a browser.