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That seems particularly absurd (which isn't to doubt you, but as much as I like the EU, they have some absurd policies). If you take a very narrow view of data

by nxc18 10y ago

That seems particularly absurd (which isn't to doubt you, but as much as I like the EU, they have some absurd policies). If you take a very narrow view of data as just bits on a hard drive somewhere, then this seems reasonable. But if the ownership right to your data is centered on the information itself, and not the company part, that raises issues. I can't simply destroy the memory of reading the message you wrote - is someone to cudgel me until I do? If I write in my diary that I saw xyz person walking down the street and they had blue hair, could they demand that I destroy the entry? Would they have to know about the diary entry before they could make such demands, or could they simply say, "destroy all information regarding me"? Further, as I understand it, municipal security cameras are in wide use, particularly in European cities. Could I demand that the city/town/council/etc delete all footage of me ever? Could I deny them permission to make those recordings? And last but not least, how on earth would this stance on data ownership not ruin data retention? E.g. this would seem to open up a pretty big hole where I could commit fraud or launder money, and then demand that my bank destroy the evidence. These are all awkward questions that come up when you try to protect very broad definitions of privacy. Privacy is a thoroughly unnatural concept; In the physical world, it takes a lot of work to do anything in private, and even then, you're just making it easier for people to avoid stumbling on what you're doing.

kuschku 10y ago
> Could I demand that the city/town/council/etc delete all footage of me ever? In fact, that is required automatically – all recordings have to be deleted as soon as possible, the maximum retention periods unless there is specific evidence against you is usually a few weeks or months. > And last but not least, how on earth would this stance on data ownership not ruin data retention? That’s literally what happened. The European Court of Justice has ruled that data retention unless technically required is illegal.
pluma 10y ago
It's simple: you don't get to store data unless there's a technical requirement to keep that data stored to provide whatever service a user signed up for. If a user didn't agree to their data to be stored in the first place, you don't get to retain it at all. Whether you can discard data about a user "against their wishes" is likely covered by your terms of service. If you're a commercial hosting provider, there's probably a higher barrier than if you're a free doodling website. This has nothing to do with privacy, though. If a user tells you to destroy their information, you need to destroy all information about them. There's obviously some wiggle room (e.g. if you keep a flat "view count" on an article, there's likely no way to argue that you should have to deduct the user's views but if you're keeping a record of "views" linked to user IDs the user ID may still be personally identifiable if it can be correlated with other data). But most companies fail at deleting even the most obvious data. If you "delete" someone's account and they're unable to sign up with the same username or e-mail address again, you're likely not properly deleting information. And that's if you even offer the option of deleting an account at all. It's horrifying how many (especially American but sometimes even EU) websites don't offer any such option at all or even simply offer an option to "close" an account, marking it as disabled but still retaining all data forever. > Could I demand that the city/town/council/etc delete all footage of me ever? Yes. Security cameras have strict regulations and generally recordings have to be destroyed eventually unless there's a good reason to keep them (e.g. they're part of a criminal investigation). This even extends to police cameras: if a police officer makes a recording (e.g. at a demonstration) and the recording isn't relevant to any investigation, you can ask for it to be destroyed ASAP (rather than waiting for them to destroy it). This also extends to other information like your name and address. > I could commit fraud or launder money, and then demand that my bank destroy the evidence. There are special laws for financial transactions and criminal investigations. There is such a thing as a "permanent record" but it is clearly defined what goes on it and what doesn't (and at what point it has to be destroyed). There are also very strict laws for handling such information, similarly to the strict PCI rules for handling credit card information. You're basically arguing that privacy is a slippery slope but in reality it isn't. Privacy may be an "unnatural" concept but the expectation of privacy is a human right (like, officially, as part of the UN Declaration of Human Rights). The EU actually has very few "absurd" policies -- most of them only appear absurd when taken out of context. I assure you that EU privacy laws are not part of them. Except for the cookie notice. That's not only ineffective but outright ridiculous.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Well, the cookie notice also only is ridiculous if taken out of context. You literally have the cookie notice in your post, too, as the law simply states: If you collect any tracking data about a user that's not technically required, you have to let them opt in. This obviously means tracking cookies have to be opt in, and that's how the cookie notice came to be. Technical cookies, such as login cookies, are exempt, obviously, but other tracking methods, such as storing in localStorage are included.
  - pluma 10y ago
    True, but I would argue that the idea of cookie notices is good but the execution is poor. This is one of the few situations where a technical solution would have been better, e.g. having each cookie come with a specified purpose and letting the browser prompt per issuer and displaying the purpose to the user: * 3 cookies from ads.google.com: "Personalizing the advertisements you see on this page" [Allow] [Deny] * 1 cookie from share.facebook.com: "Social media integration" [Allow] [Deny] * 1 cookie from analytics.example.com: "Anonymized site analytics. For more information see http://example.com/privacy http://example.com/privacy. We value your privacy." [Allow] [Deny] * 1 cookie from www.example.com: "Keeping you logged in as kuschku on www.example.com" [Allow] [Deny] But this would require passing an actual web standard and getting browser vendors on board (and Chrome has a conflict of interest making them unlikely to support it without sufficient pressure). This would have satisfied the legal requirement without creating the obnoxious obligatory "Please click 'okay' or we'll keep showing this message on every page" experience we have now. It would also be less error-prone because the failure state would be "users might deny unjustified cookies" rather than "site will send cookies regardless" when not implemented correctly. Besides, browsers already ask for permissions for things like desktop notifications or geolocation. EDIT: I'm not saying this shouldn't have been passed into law. I'm saying the EU should have involved browser vendors and investigated a technical solution before making the notices mandatory. Compliance would have then be easier ("just add these headers") and adoption would have been faster ("it's easy to fix and it's the law"). EDIT2: Unlike the old Semantic Web problem of websites being liars I don't think deceptive purpose statements for cookies would have been a noteworthy issue because it would be literally against the law in the EU to deceive users. It would also have imposed the burden on the actual cookie issuers and created incentives for EU websites to hold their advertising providers accountable to comply with EU laws (rather than build a kludge around them to make their scripts opt-in).

by nxc18 10y ago

kuschku 10y ago

> Could I demand that the city/town/council/etc delete all footage of me ever? In fact, that is required automatically – all recordings have to be deleted as soon as possible, the maximum retention periods unless there is specific evidence against you is usually a few weeks or months. > And last but not least, how on earth would this stance on data ownership not ruin data retention? That’s literally what happened. The European Court of Justice has ruled that data retention unless technically required is illegal.

pluma 10y ago

It's simple: you don't get to store data unless there's a technical requirement to keep that data stored to provide whatever service a user signed up for. If a user didn't agree to their data to be stored in the first place, you don't get to retain it at all. Whether you can discard data about a user "against their wishes" is likely covered by your terms of service. If you're a commercial hosting provider, there's probably a higher barrier than if you're a free doodling website. This has nothing to do with privacy, though. If a user tells you to destroy their information, you need to destroy all information about them. There's obviously some wiggle room (e.g. if you keep a flat "view count" on an article, there's likely no way to argue that you should have to deduct the user's views but if you're keeping a record of "views" linked to user IDs the user ID may still be personally identifiable if it can be correlated with other data). But most companies fail at deleting even the most obvious data. If you "delete" someone's account and they're unable to sign up with the same username or e-mail address again, you're likely not properly deleting information. And that's if you even offer the option of deleting an account at all. It's horrifying how many (especially American but sometimes even EU) websites don't offer any such option at all or even simply offer an option to "close" an account, marking it as disabled but still retaining all data forever. > Could I demand that the city/town/council/etc delete all footage of me ever? Yes. Security cameras have strict regulations and generally recordings have to be destroyed eventually unless there's a good reason to keep them (e.g. they're part of a criminal investigation). This even extends to police cameras: if a police officer makes a recording (e.g. at a demonstration) and the recording isn't relevant to any investigation, you can ask for it to be destroyed ASAP (rather than waiting for them to destroy it). This also extends to other information like your name and address. > I could commit fraud or launder money, and then demand that my bank destroy the evidence. There are special laws for financial transactions and criminal investigations. There is such a thing as a "permanent record" but it is clearly defined what goes on it and what doesn't (and at what point it has to be destroyed). There are also very strict laws for handling such information, similarly to the strict PCI rules for handling credit card information. You're basically arguing that privacy is a slippery slope but in reality it isn't. Privacy may be an "unnatural" concept but the expectation of privacy is a human right (like, officially, as part of the UN Declaration of Human Rights). The EU actually has very few "absurd" policies -- most of them only appear absurd when taken out of context. I assure you that EU privacy laws are not part of them. Except for the cookie notice. That's not only ineffective but outright ridiculous.

kuschku 10y ago
Well, the cookie notice also only is ridiculous if taken out of context. You literally have the cookie notice in your post, too, as the law simply states: If you collect any tracking data about a user that's not technically required, you have to let them opt in. This obviously means tracking cookies have to be opt in, and that's how the cookie notice came to be. Technical cookies, such as login cookies, are exempt, obviously, but other tracking methods, such as storing in localStorage are included.
- pluma 10y ago
  True, but I would argue that the idea of cookie notices is good but the execution is poor. This is one of the few situations where a technical solution would have been better, e.g. having each cookie come with a specified purpose and letting the browser prompt per issuer and displaying the purpose to the user: * 3 cookies from ads.google.com: "Personalizing the advertisements you see on this page" [Allow] [Deny] * 1 cookie from share.facebook.com: "Social media integration" [Allow] [Deny] * 1 cookie from analytics.example.com: "Anonymized site analytics. For more information see http://example.com/privacy http://example.com/privacy. We value your privacy." [Allow] [Deny] * 1 cookie from www.example.com: "Keeping you logged in as kuschku on www.example.com" [Allow] [Deny] But this would require passing an actual web standard and getting browser vendors on board (and Chrome has a conflict of interest making them unlikely to support it without sufficient pressure). This would have satisfied the legal requirement without creating the obnoxious obligatory "Please click 'okay' or we'll keep showing this message on every page" experience we have now. It would also be less error-prone because the failure state would be "users might deny unjustified cookies" rather than "site will send cookies regardless" when not implemented correctly. Besides, browsers already ask for permissions for things like desktop notifications or geolocation. EDIT: I'm not saying this shouldn't have been passed into law. I'm saying the EU should have involved browser vendors and investigated a technical solution before making the notices mandatory. Compliance would have then be easier ("just add these headers") and adoption would have been faster ("it's easy to fix and it's the law"). EDIT2: Unlike the old Semantic Web problem of websites being liars I don't think deceptive purpose statements for cookies would have been a noteworthy issue because it would be literally against the law in the EU to deceive users. It would also have imposed the burden on the actual cookie issuers and created incentives for EU websites to hold their advertising providers accountable to comply with EU laws (rather than build a kludge around them to make their scripts opt-in).