The UK’s data watchdog has restarted an investigation of adtech practices that, since 2018, have been subject to scores of complaints across Europe under the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The high velocity trading of Internet users’ personal data can’t possibly be compliant with GDPR’s requirement that such information is adequately secured, the complaints contend. Other concerns attached to real-time bidding (RTB) focus on consent, questioning how this can meet the required legal standard with data being broadcast to so many companies — including sensitive information, such as health data or religious and political affiliation and sexual orientation. Since the first complaints were filed the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has raised its own concerns over what it said are systemic problems with lawfulness in the adtech sector.