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This applies to all uses Merkle trees---blockchains is one example, but someone[1] pointed out that git is another. Each git repo typically contains the names a

This applies to all uses Merkle trees---blockchains is one example, but someone[1] pointed out that git is another. Each git repo typically contains the names and email addresses of people who committed, and you can't rewrite history without disrupting anyone else who is working with the repo. Does this now mean that github is in violation of the GDPR, since they cannot retroactively delete people's personal information? [1] https://social.heldscal.la/notice/7460829 https://social.heldscal.la/notice/7460829

knorker 8y ago
> Each git repo typically contains the names and email addresses of people who committed, and you can't rewrite history without disrupting anyone else who is working with the repo. But you can do it. You can disrupt people, but shrug. You do the same thing in git to remove copyrighted content from your repo. You can't tell The Law (copyright law and/or GDPR) that "sorry, can't do it because that'd be inconvenient to people". The problem is that if you do it to bitcoin it breaks. > Does this now mean that github is in violation of the GDPR, since they cannot retroactively delete people's personal information? Sure they can. First of all github may not be the legal "owner" (I forget the term), the user is. Second, if github were told by a court to remove the content, of course they can. This is even scalable, to github: "Hello N. N. Due to GDPR request XYZ your repo A is in shallow-clone mode until you remove Y piece of PII. Click here to automatically git-filter-branch." To say they can't remove it is like saying you cannot remove PII because your business's domain name is TheresaMayIsABigFatTurd.com. That's not going to fly.