10 ms·

Why not give the user control and have things such as crash reporting be opt-in? We sleep-walked into a society where the expectation is that any and all data

by eterm 8y ago

Why not give the user control and have things such as crash reporting be opt-in? We sleep-walked into a society where the expectation is that any and all data is scooped up and sent off remotely without adequate controls and I think it's great that the EU GDPR is making people wake up to the scale of it. Suggesting that XMPP federation isn't compatible with GDPR seems like an over-reaction, isn't that like saying that SMTP isn't compatible?

donohoe 8y ago
Yeah, they are over-reacting. For example, IP addresses are considered personal information but what that means is you just can't blindly collect them. If the service you use relies on IP addresses as a basic point of operation then its fine. CDNs aren't going out of business for example.
- islanderfun 8y ago
  > that means is you just can't blindly collect them Genuinely curious, what about all of the web servers that log every request which usually by default includes the client IP? Not doing anything special with the IP, they are just there in log files and archives.
  - jtl999 8y ago
    `tail /var/log/nginx/access.log` Oops. Also the section of the GDPR that talks about pseudonymization using a token how should my user DB table be GDPR compliant? Contains ID (primary key), username, password hash, email, etc and the ID is also in other DB tables for obvious reasons (such as user posts/actions).
    - jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
      I think it can simply be GDPR compliant if you inform your users that you are saving that data in your database, and they give you the explicit OK to do to. Explicit consent meaning they tick a checkbox saying "I understand that page x is saving the data y in a database and I am OK with it". If you have a site where users can make posts, I'd say they pretty much give you consent by signing up. IANAL, though.
      - scaryclam 8y ago
        The consent has to be explicit. Of course, you can always just require consent in order to sign up. Just as long as it's clear what's going on and you can remove/anonymise the data if the user decides to revoke their consent and leave the service.
        jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
        OK, but explicit in what sense? Does it have to refer to the GDPR, as in "I agree my dta will be stored according to GDPR"? I must admit I have trouble understanding it - how could anybody sign up anywhere without data being stored?
  - jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
    Personally, I'll activate anonymization of ip addresses in my logs coming next week. There are various solutions for that available. I think you can also log the ip, you just have to get your user's explicit consent. I will also remove Google Analytics, and switch AdSense to contextual ads. I am a bit worried about the latter step, but if the losses are too great I can still try to get consent from my visitors and switch to personalized ads again. As for Google Analytics, I never did get that much out of it, but perhaps I should have used it more. I never activated the "deep personalization" options in GA to begin with. It bothers me to pester my visitors with consent popups. On the other hand, looking at what Google proposes for compliant AdSense, it also bothers me that apparently multiple companies get to track my users if I enable personalized ads. I wasn't really aware of that, and just accepted Google as tracking because they know everything anyway. So much as I dislike the new privacy laws, at least the made me reconsider my AdSense settings.
    - binarnosp 8y ago
      Google analytics has an option to anonymize the IP and remove unique user id from the data collection.
      - jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
        Sure, not saying you can't use Google Analytics, just that my choice is to remove it.
  - scaryclam 8y ago
    It's fine to collect this information in your logs as it's part of the normal operation. I log them for security reasons and the logs do not persist for more than a week or two, which is less than the month I'd have to comply within. Provided you're not logging IP addresses for non-legitimate reasons and you're not keeping the data for longer than you reasonably need to, you have nothing to worry about.
jimmaswell 8y ago
>We sleep-walked into a society where the expectation is that any and all data is scooped up and sent off remotely without adequate controls We used to live in a society where webmasters' rights to the fruits of their labor weren't trampled on by inane regulation (to this degree at least). Now if you run a website in the EU, any user who signs up to it has control over the contents of your servers and you have to ask in extremely specific detail to do anything with some of that content, and that "consent" can be revoked at any time. The EU has shot themselves in the foot and more and more companies are going to refuse to do business with them because of it.
- BinaryIdiot 8y ago
  > We used to live in a society where webmasters' rights to the fruits of their labor weren't trampled on by inane regulation (to this degree at least) So someone having a copy of my data that I wish be removed is trampling on a webmaster's rights? That makes no sense whatsoever. > Now if you run a website in the EU, any user who signs up to it has control over the contents of your servers This isn't even true. They have _a tiny bit more_ control of what you can do _with their_ data. That's it. Buckle up because this type of regulation is only going to happen more frequently and in large part because of your attitude that it is "your" data versus the user's data.
  - jimmaswell 8y ago
    But it's not "their" data. It's the webmaster's data. It rightfully belongs to the webmaster. It just happens to pertain to the user. There is no justification for that information still belonging to the user after the user surrenders it to the website.
    - anonymouz 8y ago
      > But it's not "their" data. It's the webmaster's data. No > It rightfully belongs to the webmaster. No, you are completely wrong here. The basic point of the legislation (and other privacy legislation in the EU that came before GDPR) is that a users personal data absolutely does not belong to the someone else once collected.
badsectoracula 8y ago
Indeed and TBH when the part about Crashlytics made me glad about GDPR (although the rest of the message does indeed sound like an overreaction). I do not like when applications i use try and do things that are irrelevant to what the application is all about, especially when these "things" involve communicating through the internet and even more so when i am not informed about it.
- sleepychu 8y ago
  I think it's a weak argument to suggest that crash reports are not "what the application is about" it contributes to the ongoing development and stability of an application which you use. That said I do think there should be an expectation that your participation in crash reporting would be voluntary and explicit.
whataretensors 8y ago
> We sleep-walked into a society where the expectation is that any and all data is scooped up and sent off remotely without adequate controls and I think it's great that the EU GDPR is making people wake up to the scale of it. Government intelligence organizations like the NSA and foreign equivalents will now have a monopoly on unsolicited data collection. Which, combined with selective enforcement to prevent disruption of gov cartels, is one of the few reasons it went through.

by eterm 8y ago

donohoe 8y ago

Yeah, they are over-reacting. For example, IP addresses are considered personal information but what that means is you just can't blindly collect them. If the service you use relies on IP addresses as a basic point of operation then its fine. CDNs aren't going out of business for example.

islanderfun 8y ago
> that means is you just can't blindly collect them Genuinely curious, what about all of the web servers that log every request which usually by default includes the client IP? Not doing anything special with the IP, they are just there in log files and archives.
- jtl999 8y ago
  `tail /var/log/nginx/access.log` Oops. Also the section of the GDPR that talks about pseudonymization using a token how should my user DB table be GDPR compliant? Contains ID (primary key), username, password hash, email, etc and the ID is also in other DB tables for obvious reasons (such as user posts/actions).
  - jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
    I think it can simply be GDPR compliant if you inform your users that you are saving that data in your database, and they give you the explicit OK to do to. Explicit consent meaning they tick a checkbox saying "I understand that page x is saving the data y in a database and I am OK with it". If you have a site where users can make posts, I'd say they pretty much give you consent by signing up. IANAL, though.
    - scaryclam 8y ago
      The consent has to be explicit. Of course, you can always just require consent in order to sign up. Just as long as it's clear what's going on and you can remove/anonymise the data if the user decides to revoke their consent and leave the service.
      - jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
        OK, but explicit in what sense? Does it have to refer to the GDPR, as in "I agree my dta will be stored according to GDPR"? I must admit I have trouble understanding it - how could anybody sign up anywhere without data being stored?
- jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
  Personally, I'll activate anonymization of ip addresses in my logs coming next week. There are various solutions for that available. I think you can also log the ip, you just have to get your user's explicit consent. I will also remove Google Analytics, and switch AdSense to contextual ads. I am a bit worried about the latter step, but if the losses are too great I can still try to get consent from my visitors and switch to personalized ads again. As for Google Analytics, I never did get that much out of it, but perhaps I should have used it more. I never activated the "deep personalization" options in GA to begin with. It bothers me to pester my visitors with consent popups. On the other hand, looking at what Google proposes for compliant AdSense, it also bothers me that apparently multiple companies get to track my users if I enable personalized ads. I wasn't really aware of that, and just accepted Google as tracking because they know everything anyway. So much as I dislike the new privacy laws, at least the made me reconsider my AdSense settings.
  - binarnosp 8y ago
    Google analytics has an option to anonymize the IP and remove unique user id from the data collection.
    - jesdjkeujjuju 8y ago
      Sure, not saying you can't use Google Analytics, just that my choice is to remove it.
- scaryclam 8y ago
  It's fine to collect this information in your logs as it's part of the normal operation. I log them for security reasons and the logs do not persist for more than a week or two, which is less than the month I'd have to comply within. Provided you're not logging IP addresses for non-legitimate reasons and you're not keeping the data for longer than you reasonably need to, you have nothing to worry about.

jimmaswell 8y ago

>We sleep-walked into a society where the expectation is that any and all data is scooped up and sent off remotely without adequate controls We used to live in a society where webmasters' rights to the fruits of their labor weren't trampled on by inane regulation (to this degree at least). Now if you run a website in the EU, any user who signs up to it has control over the contents of your servers and you have to ask in extremely specific detail to do anything with some of that content, and that "consent" can be revoked at any time. The EU has shot themselves in the foot and more and more companies are going to refuse to do business with them because of it.

BinaryIdiot 8y ago
> We used to live in a society where webmasters' rights to the fruits of their labor weren't trampled on by inane regulation (to this degree at least) So someone having a copy of my data that I wish be removed is trampling on a webmaster's rights? That makes no sense whatsoever. > Now if you run a website in the EU, any user who signs up to it has control over the contents of your servers This isn't even true. They have _a tiny bit more_ control of what you can do _with their_ data. That's it. Buckle up because this type of regulation is only going to happen more frequently and in large part because of your attitude that it is "your" data versus the user's data.
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  But it's not "their" data. It's the webmaster's data. It rightfully belongs to the webmaster. It just happens to pertain to the user. There is no justification for that information still belonging to the user after the user surrenders it to the website.
  - anonymouz 8y ago
    > But it's not "their" data. It's the webmaster's data. No > It rightfully belongs to the webmaster. No, you are completely wrong here. The basic point of the legislation (and other privacy legislation in the EU that came before GDPR) is that a users personal data absolutely does not belong to the someone else once collected.

badsectoracula 8y ago

Indeed and TBH when the part about Crashlytics made me glad about GDPR (although the rest of the message does indeed sound like an overreaction). I do not like when applications i use try and do things that are irrelevant to what the application is all about, especially when these "things" involve communicating through the internet and even more so when i am not informed about it.

sleepychu 8y ago
I think it's a weak argument to suggest that crash reports are not "what the application is about" it contributes to the ongoing development and stability of an application which you use. That said I do think there should be an expectation that your participation in crash reporting would be voluntary and explicit.

whataretensors 8y ago

> We sleep-walked into a society where the expectation is that any and all data is scooped up and sent off remotely without adequate controls and I think it's great that the EU GDPR is making people wake up to the scale of it. Government intelligence organizations like the NSA and foreign equivalents will now have a monopoly on unsolicited data collection. Which, combined with selective enforcement to prevent disruption of gov cartels, is one of the few reasons it went through.