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GDPR and how it affects Geocaching


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What about the option to convert an OP to anonymous possibly with a reworded post (by a moderator) to keep the thread intact?

Maybe the request to delete content would initially 'hide' a thread, and raise it to moderators. Within some period (say a week) if it's not dealt with it's automatically deleted. That gives moderators time to comply with GDPR but also finding a way to keep any pertinent content that's relevant to the forum while removing any data that could in any way be connected with the requesting user.  Would that be the allowable within GDPR law?

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52 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

What about the option to convert an OP to anonymous possibly with a reworded post (by a moderator) to keep the thread intact?

Maybe the request to delete content would initially 'hide' a thread, and raise it to moderators. Within some period (say a week) if it's not dealt with it's automatically deleted. That gives moderators time to comply with GDPR but also finding a way to keep any pertinent content that's relevant to the forum while removing any data that could in any way be connected with the requesting user.  Would that be the allowable within GDPR law?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We'd have to consult with our army of lawyers.

 

Oh wait...

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15 hours ago, niraD said:

I'm sorry, but allowing someone to ask for help in a public forum, and then delete/hide the thread once they've gotten the help they wanted, is anything but "a little common sense" to me. And respect for my "consumers" would lead me to keeping such threads online, not to allowing the OP to delete/hide them.

 

As others have said, that's not precisely what GDPR is about - which was the thrust of my post, but anyway...

 

Groundspeak have taken a decision that the ability to delete a thread can be taken by the thread starter. Given that people mistakenly start threads on message boards for all sorts of reasons, that's not the worst decision I've ever seen taken by a company. I can see counter arguments as well, but in general it seems to me that Groundspeak has taken a rational and logical sort of decision here, perhaps only partly to comply with GDPR - there are other perfectly sound reasons for having taken that decision. I'm sure that there are other decisions that could have been taken, but they've decided, for one reason or another, that this is the most sensible way of approaching this.

 

It's really not the worst decision that has ever been made by someone running a forum.

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15 hours ago, niraD said:

I'm sorry, but allowing someone to ask for help in a public forum, and then delete/hide the thread once they've gotten the help they wanted, is anything but "a little common sense" to me.

 

I understand what you're saying, but that part (to me) seems no different than when they've received the help, scanned the replies,  but never came back again.

 - Those happen all over these forums.

I'm a bit more concerned with the ones who start a thread with an absurd opinion, don't like the responses, and simply delete their OP.

 - We've seen a lot of those too.  Many already get vaporized by a Mod when the thread's going into bizarre territory.

I'd like to know if obvious trolls are going to be allowed this opportunity.  If so, watch for all the new "no find" accounts with "ideas" to share...

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13 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

I understand what you're saying, but that part (to me) seems no different than when they've received the help, scanned the replies,  but never came back again.

In a case like that, the discussion could still be useful and relevant to future readers. However, if the thread is wiped out completely, this obviously isn't possible.

 

Isn't the point of GDPR that companies just need to have a way of removing all "personal" information if requested by the person? Why does it need to be a self-serve action that can be activated outside of "personal information wiping" scenarios? There should be an option to contact HQ and have them remove your personal information. At that point, someone at HQ can cleanse the site and modify any forum discussions to remove the personal information of that user without nuking the contributions of others. A self-serve nuke-this-entire-discussion-at-my-whim option is just too likely to cause problems.

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21 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

... is just too likely to cause problems.

 

I guess it is easier to "cause problems" for an enduring conversation than for a deleted one (an option that only happens if the original poster requires so).

 

PS: I really can't understand the context of "nuke"... in a forum environment.

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9 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

... OPs now have an option available to them that can completely delete a discussion that they started, including all replies.

 

Let's compare it with this "brave new world" of the social media...

I start a post in Facebook by instance, and some other users reply to it... if for any reason I decide to delete my post (the first one), all conversation will be deleted.

I never perceive any outrage about it before.

 

PS: Please excuse me for not using any bellicist euphemisms.

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Just now, RuideAlmeida said:

 

Let's compare it with this "brave new world" of the social media...

I start a post in Facebook by instance, and some other users reply to it... if for any reason I decide to delete my post (the first one), all conversation will be deleted.

I never perceive any outrage about it before.

 

PS: Please excuse me for not using any bellicist euphemisms.

Facebook is very different from a forum like this. Here, we may have a discussion that could go on for a long time and be referred back to by future members. This is especially true of discussions where someone asks for help; a discussion like that could be very useful for anyone that has the same question in the future. Facebook, on the other hand, generally has a discussion between a small set of friends/acquaintances that isn't meant to be useful in the future.

 

P.S. Sorry for offending you with my usage of the term "nuke". It's used often in the technology world, but I guess other people might not like the use of that term.

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4 hours ago, on4bam said:

If I take a photograph, I have the copyright on it. If I want it deleted I have that right (and that's long before GDPR) as the rights holder. It now covers data too. You will have to deal with it, like it or not but the EU is now making sure citizens have some power too and not only companies.

If you submit your photo for publication in a magazine, you can't demand that all copies of that magazine be burned just because you change your mind later.

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4 minutes ago, niraD said:

If you submit your photo for publication in a magazine, you can't demand that all copies of that magazine be burned just because you change your mind later.

 

More to the point of the forum posts, if a person submits a letter to the editor of a print publication in the EU and it is published (normally requiring more specific personal information than just a geonik) that letter and any subsequent replies are not going to disappear no matter what the original writer might desire. The only difference is that this forum is digital media. To treat print and digital media differently in this instance makes little sense to me.

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38 minutes ago, The A-Team said:

P.S. Sorry for offending you with my usage of the term "nuke". It's used often in the technology world, but I guess other people might not like the use of that term.

I hear "nuke" used in reference to microwave ovens all the time. No one seems to be concerned about the "bellicist euphemism".

 

And yeah, in a tech context, "nuke" is often used to refer to completely destroying data and/or hardware.

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3 minutes ago, RuideAlmeida said:
8 minutes ago, niraD said:

What about others' right to remember?

As long they don't suffer from Alzheimer, they will retain it.

Can they tell other people? Can they write it down to help them remember? Can they share their written accounts with other people?

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1 hour ago, The A-Team said:

Facebook is very different from a forum like this. Here, we may have a discussion that could go on for a long time and be referred back to by future members. This is especially true of discussions where someone asks for help; a discussion like that could be very useful for anyone that has the same question in the future. Facebook, on the other hand, generally has a discussion between a small set of friends/acquaintances that isn't meant to be useful in the future.

 

P.S. Sorry for offending you with my usage of the term "nuke". It's used often in the technology world, but I guess other people might not like the use of that term.

 

Actually some FB groups are very similar.  A question gets asked on a puzzle help group, say, and in theory the thread remais as a searchable resource.  The OP gets what they need, and deletes the post.  May not cause outrage, by considerable harrumphing!

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10 hours ago, on4bam said:

Have you looked up "safe haven" yet? It already covered dataprotection for data on US servers. GDRP takes it a step (or two) further.

 

It might be more helpful to actually provide the information instead of telling someone to look it up, which you have done twice in this thread.  In the USA, the term "safe haven" law refers to the ability to surrender an unwanted baby to specified locations without incurring criminal liability.  (If you doubt this, use Google to look up "safe haven laws.") I doubt this is what you intended but since you don't actually supply the information, we are left to guess.

Edited by GeoTrekker26
Edit to correct a typo and demonstrate how changes can affect a thread.
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3 hours ago, RuideAlmeida said:
3 hours ago, niraD said:

Can they tell other people? Can they write it down to help them remember? Can they share their written accounts with other people?

Or, maybe they should mind their own business... most especially if their "curiosity" conflicts with others rights.

So now knowledge and awareness (and even "curiosity") about what others have done is a violation of their rights? Is that where this is going?

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19 minutes ago, niraD said:

So now knowledge and awareness (and even "curiosity") about what others have done is a violation of their rights? Is that where this is going?

I just messed up the reply so I deleted it.

If the person that posted decides it is, yes.

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5 minutes ago, 31BMSG said:
28 minutes ago, niraD said:

So now knowledge and awareness (and even "curiosity") about what others have done is a violation of their rights? Is that where this is going?

 

If the person that posted decides it is, yes.

 

Wow.

Ok, I've suddenly decided to close all my social media and that everyone who's looked my feeds, knows and is aware of them, especially those who've opted to follow me even out of curiosity, have violated my privacy rights!

 

Yeah... no.  It cannot be that way.

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2 hours ago, GeoTrekker26 said:

It might be more helpful to actually provide the information instead of telling someone to look it up, which you have done twice in this thread.  In the USA, the term "safe haven" law refers to the ability to surrender an unwanted baby to specified locations without incurring criminal liability.  (If you doubt this, use Google to look up "safe have laws.") I doubt this is what you intended but since you don't actually supply the information, we are left to guess.

If you don't mind could you provide the information to the "safe have laws" so I don't have to look it up?

 

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7 minutes ago, 31BMSG said:
2 hours ago, GeoTrekker26 said:

It might be more helpful to actually provide the information instead of telling someone to look it up, which you have done twice in this thread.  In the USA, the term "safe haven" law refers to the ability to surrender an unwanted baby to specified locations without incurring criminal liability.  (If you doubt this, use Google to look up "safe have laws.") I doubt this is what you intended but since you don't actually supply the information, we are left to guess.

If you don't mind could you provide the information to the "safe have laws" so I don't have to look it up?

http://safehaven.tv/states/california/

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3 hours ago, 31BMSG said:

If you don't mind could you provide the information to the "safe have laws" so I don't have to look it up?

 

 

I should have written safe harbor, my bad. Anyway, I could just find it using my favorite (non tracking ;) ) search engine Here's a bit of info on what it was (as we now have GDPR)

 

7 hours ago, niraD said:

If you submit your photo for publication in a magazine, you can't demand that all copies of that magazine be burned just because you change your mind later.

 

If published on a website and I want it removed, it will be removed, don't even doubt it for a split second. Publishing in a magazine is a different beast as it then comes to contracts being signed.

 

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Why should MY content as a reply to another person be removed at the whim of the person who starts a thread? That person has violated MY right to publish information that may be useful to others. The question they asked in a public forum is no greater "personal information" than my answer to that question.

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1 minute ago, K13 said:

Why should MY content as a reply to another person be removed at the whim of the person who starts a thread? That person has violated MY right to publish information that may be useful to others. The question they asked in a public forum is no greater "personal information" than my answer to that question.

 

Again, complain to the site owner. It's not a GDPR requirement. THEY decided to remove answers. I'm sure (forum)software will evolve to only remove posts by the one asking to remove it and leave the rest intact. For the time being it seems that site owners take the easy way out and remove everything.

 

 

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This follows that anyone who posts their comments to a PUBLIC forum and expects that comment to be "personal data" is asinine. Once posted to a public forum, whatever you say is now PUBLIC information. You lost any expectation of privacy the moment you posted it - however, any personally identifiable information about you that you didn't post is certainly considered personal by the website where you posted that information.

 

Simply stated, "If you post something in a public forum, IT IS NO LONGER PERSONAL INFORMATION THAT DESERVES PROTECTION.

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8 minutes ago, K13 said:

Simply stated, "If you post something in a public forum, IT IS NO LONGER PERSONAL INFORMATION THAT DESERVES PROTECTION.

 

 

OK.. I give up... Take it up with the EU.

It seems some don't care about privacy or privacy rights.

 

 

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5 hours ago, on4bam said:

It seems some don't care about privacy or privacy rights.

This supposed "right to be forgotten" doesn't seem to be about privacy at all. It seems to be about forcing others to pretend that you didn't do/say something by forcing them to delete all online records of it.

 

But of course, I am not a lawyer, and I don't have an army of lawyers on staff, so I can't be expected to understand the subtleties of EU law.

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5 hours ago, on4bam said:

 

 

OK.. I give up... Take it up with the EU.

It seems some don't care about privacy or privacy rights.

 

 

 

Agreed! Change your citizenship and take it up with your elected representative.

 

Hmmm maybe we should start a thread on gun rights and regulations. Talk about a can of worms.... Same results BTW.

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22 minutes ago, niraD said:

This supposed "right to be forgotten" doesn't seem to be about privacy at all. It seems to be about forcing others to pretend that you didn't do/say something by forcing them to delete all online records of it.

 

That's the way I see it as well.   "Privacy" is easily accomplished by just not having your personal info on your profile... 

(To me) this isn't privacy, rather a means to "take back" or retreat from something said.

People post to the forums because they choose to.  "Privacy" shouldn't even be a thing when someone made a choice to start a thread, or answer another in a post.

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7 hours ago, on4bam said:

OK.. I give up... Take it up with the EU.

It seems some don't care about privacy or privacy rights.

Well, I think the broader problem is that these new technologies provide everyone with a public voice which individuals were thrilled to use without worrying about privacy. Now that we've discovered the problem with that, we're all are demanding someone else fix the problem we ourselves created when we embraced having a public face. I think this conversation is exploring some of the fundamental problems with pretending the user has no responsibility for the privacy they consciously and intentionally gave up.

 

9 hours ago, on4bam said:

If published on a website and I want it removed, it will be removed, don't even doubt it for a split second. Publishing in a magazine is a different beast as it then comes to contracts being signed.

I'm not exactly sure what contract you're thinking of -- I don't sign a contract when I send a magazine a letter to the editors, for example -- but why wouldn't, say, the geocaching.com terms of use agreement be insufficient to establish a similar contract?

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Maybe it's time to think why (among other reasons) GDPR was created. Let's take the easy target of FB. Even without creating an account websites are putting FB cookies and FB pixels on their sites. That way FB tracks and collects data on these users that have no connection with them.

Now, you may find that this is no problem but I do. It seems enough people cared to get the politicians at work on this.

That's just FB, but look at any website using a few add-ons in your browser and see how many companies gather data and even share it with 3rd parties. All this without the users consent and for many even without their knowledge.

 

 

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56 minutes ago, on4bam said:

Maybe it's time to think why (among other reasons) GDPR was created. Let's take the easy target of FB. Even without creating an account websites are putting FB cookies and FB pixels on their sites. That way FB tracks and collects data on these users that have no connection with them.

Now, you may find that this is no problem but I do. It seems enough people cared to get the politicians at work on this.

That's just FB, but look at any website using a few add-ons in your browser and see how many companies gather data and even share it with 3rd parties. All this without the users consent and for many even without their knowledge.

Sure, but that is different than someone purposely posting on a public forum. They do that with their own consent and knowledge (they're the ones typing - unless they're under hypnosis or something).

 

If I make a public speech, and I know it's going to be recorded by, say, news stations (no contract or anything), do I then have a right to demand they delete the recording? What about a private individual in the crowd who records it? It was a public event; there's a reasonable expectation that someone will retain that "personal data" of mine. But I gave that speech with the knowledge that I am speaking in public. My words will be "out there" and once given, cannot be fully erased from the universe.

 

The same expectation should be true of public online forums. What's the difference? If you post your home address on a public forum, you should be smart enough to realize that people are going to read that and retain it. You cannot erase it from the universe. You'd be stupid to post it in the first place.

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41 minutes ago, on4bam said:

Maybe it's time to think why (among other reasons) GDPR was created. Let's take the easy target of FB. Even without creating an account websites are putting FB cookies and FB pixels on their sites. That way FB tracks and collects data on these users that have no connection with them.

Now, you may find that this is no problem but I do. It seems enough people cared to get the politicians at work on this.

That's just FB, but look at any website using a few add-ons in your browser and see how many companies gather data and even share it with 3rd parties. All this without the users consent and for many even without their knowledge.

Oh, no, I agree completely. It's a terrible problem. But it's an obvious problem we all just pretended didn't exist, so we happily took advantage of those cookies and everything else, making FB fabulously successful. I've never looked at GDPR seriously, so what I know about it is through indirect discussions such as this one, but even with that, I don't rule it out as a possible solution. I just bristle at the underlying argument that it's all FB's fault for taking advantage of us. Over the last 20 years, I've been astonished at how quickly people were falling all over themselves to spread themselves out over the Internet, and I've long feared what the resulting catastrophe would look like. My guess was that it would result in a final realization that there is no such thing as privacy. I never dreamt that we'd decide privacy is our most precious asset...and then turn over all responsibility for maintaining it to the government.

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1 hour ago, on4bam said:

Maybe it's time to think why (among other reasons) GDPR was created. Let's take the easy target of FB.

Does it really matter why GDPR was created? It's intentions may (or may not) have been noble, but from my perspective, all that matters is what the GDPR requires.

 

And again, I am not Facebook, I am not Microsoft, I am not Google, and I am not a global corporation. I am not a lawyer, and I do not have an army of lawyers at my disposal.

 

And if the GDPR and laws like it mean that one has to be a global corporation with armies of lawyers to create and maintain a web site, then I do not think that is a beneficial development for the web as a whole.

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1 minute ago, TriciaG said:

If I make a public speech, and I know it's going to be recorded by, say, news stations (no contract or anything), do I then have a right to demand they delete the recording? What about a private individual in the crowd who records it? It was a public event; there's a reasonable expectation that someone will retain that "personal data" of mine. But I gave that speech with the knowledge that I am speaking in public. My words will be "out there" and once given, cannot be fully erased from the universe.

I'll give on4bam a break and respond to this. It's one thing to observe that after the speech is out there, it's out there for good. But what if that private individual records your speech, and then sells it? I hope you see the problem with that: it was your speech. Someone else shouldn't be able to make money off it, should they?

 

We think of posts in forums as just putting things out there, but that's not all that's going on. Not all forums are free, some forums have ads. So there's a sense in which they are selling our posts, so there's a justification for considering whether I should have the right to tell them to stop selling my posts -- and any resulting discussion my ideas spawned -- at some later date. Sure, one attitude is that once I give it to them, it's lost to me, but it's no less reasonable to have the opposite standard of saying I loaned them my thoughts and I'm allowed to end the loan whenever I feel like it. And even with the GS forums, which don't have ads, the forums are still a feature supporting the money making enterprise of geocaching.com and the activities going on there where there are ads.

 

I don't say this to argue against your point, just to point out that these issues aren't as cut and dried as everyone -- on both sides -- seems to think. So a serious discussion of the effect of GDPR on the GS forums really needs to look more at the practical effects of who we really want to allow to do what, including not only service providers and users, but also governments and infrastructure providers. It's unlikely we'll resolve these questions by agreeing on a single philosophical position or putting all the blame or responsibility on one group.

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12 minutes ago, niraD said:

And if the GDPR and laws like it mean that one has to be a global corporation with armies of lawyers...

 

No need for any army... just to be able to assure any user he can withhold any info he may have provided before.

What amazes me is how simple this is for some and so problematic for others... depending in which side of the "pond" we are, supposedly.

Edited by RuideAlmeida
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3 hours ago, RuideAlmeida said:

 

No need for any army... just to be able to assure any user he can withhold any info he may have provided before.

What amazes me is how simple this is for some and so problematic for others... depending in which side of the "pond" we are, supposedly.

I think it's more which side of the issue you're on. For users, it seems so simple, but the suppliers being threatened have to hire an army of lawyers to tell them whether it's simple. And that army tends to tell them it isn't at all simple.

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There has been mention of EU citizens, and of blocking EU IP addresses.  But does the GDPR apply to EU citizens or  EU residents.

 

I was born in England of parents who were born in England and that makes me a UK citizen.  Since the UK is currently still a member of the EU, that also makes me an EU citizen.  I connect to the internet via an Australian IP address.   How does the GDPR apply to me.

 

9 hours ago, RuideAlmeida said:

 

No need for any army... just to be able to assure any user he can withhold any info he may have provided before.

What amazes me is how simple this is for some and so problematic for others... depending in which side of the "pond" we are, supposedly.

It is fine to say that anybody can erase anything they posted.  That is, indeed, simple and obviously appropriate.  However if, by deleting their data, it also deletes my data then they are infringing on my rights.  I don't want to stop anyone from deleting their data but I don't want them to be able to delete mine. 

 

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10 hours ago, RuideAlmeida said:

No need for any army... just to be able to assure any user he can withhold any info he may have provided before.

So if I create a new article for Wikipedia; and if even after a few revisions by other people, most of the text of the article is still mine; and if I then remove that article based on my supposed "right to be forgotten"; then what do you think should happen?

 

I think it's perfectly reasonable for Wikipedia to restore the article, just as they would if any vandal had deleted it.

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43 minutes ago, niraD said:

So if I create a new article for Wikipedia; and if even after a few revisions by other people, most of the text of the article is still mine; and if I then remove that article based on my supposed "right to be forgotten"; then what do you think should happen?

 

The text isn't yours once you submit it - the terms you submit it under are a share alike version of a creative commons license. As soon as you hit submit you release the text on that basis.

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2 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

There has been mention of EU citizens, and of blocking EU IP addresses.  But does the GDPR apply to EU citizens or  EU residents.

 

I was born in England of parents who were born in England and that makes me a UK citizen.  Since the UK is currently still a member of the EU, that also makes me an EU citizen.  I connect to the internet via an Australian IP address.   How does the GDPR apply to me.

 

It is fine to say that anybody can erase anything they posted.  That is, indeed, simple and obviously appropriate.  However if, by deleting their data, it also deletes my data then they are infringing on my rights.  I don't want to stop anyone from deleting their data but I don't want them to be able to delete mine. 

 

 

What's your nationality? It's that simple ;)

 

For the xxxth time GDPR doesn't require that data from someone else to be deleted only the data from the one requesting to to delete his/hers.

 

 

 

 

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It looks that there's a lot of "fear of the unknown" about GDPR. At least here newspapers, tv and tech websites did their best to explain what it's about and how it will be handled. We have a "privacy commission" for a long time already that handles things like this. For instance, if you place a security camera that covers public areas (like part of the street in front of your house) you need to register your camera with them.

 

What some think about not being compliant:

An army of lawyers will show up demanding xxxx million Dollars because I failed to delete something.

 

What will happen (actually, it was officially announced that GDPR will not be used to start a witch hunt).

Suppose someone contacts you (website owner) and requests you let them know what data you have collected on them or wants his data corrected or deleted. You do as requested and there's no problem.

You refuse and the user files a complaint. You will be contacted asking about what the complaint is about and you will get information on how you can handle the situation and what to do to to comply.

You do as requested and have no more problems.

You still ignore the request and the user updates his complaint.

It's only then that you will have to start worrying... anything can happen.

 

 

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9 hours ago, Gill & Tony said:

How does the GDPR apply to me.

 

In fact, GDPR only "applies" to companies on digital world... with EU users.

Any EU user, of any company online can reclaim the "right to be forgotten".

Most probably the majority of the companies will extend it to every user... I guess.

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3 hours ago, on4bam said:

It looks that there's a lot of "fear of the unknown" about GDPR.

 

I don't see that at all.

Just one not gullible enough to believe a commission with that much power will always have "the public's" best interest at heart.

I've read a few articles on this thing when it first had notice here, and most talked about data issues, and the EU  thinking the US has too much clout online.

 - So I'm simply alert when I hear of a foreign "commission" that's imposing rules on a country not within it's ranks.

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