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Hi. I also work at this scale. It doesn't take a year to delete the data. Be upfront with your users: 'Your delete request is being processed. No one will be a

by ctvo 6y ago

Hi. I also work at this scale. It doesn't take a year to delete the data. Be upfront with your users: 'Your delete request is being processed. No one will be able to see this item though it may take up to three days for the data to be completely removed from our servers' This is not a technical challenge, it's an issue of priorities and Facebook doesn't prioritize privacy. They were able to release a TikTok clone in a few months, but can't solve deleting data?

throw_me_2020 6y ago
Deletion is very much a technical/organizational challenge. Imagine some engineer writing some feature you've never heard of and they decide they need data in a different format. They write a job to do this. Now imagine that job somehow has a bug which prevents the deletion system from understanding that copy exists. That bug could be non-obvious to find.
parliament32 6y ago
>It doesn't take a year to delete the data It does if you have cold backups that take a year to cycle out. They're often offsite, compressed, and incrementally hashed so finding individual items and removing them is really hard -- you're much better off just waiting for them to expire, and a year isn't an unreasonable amount of time.
- slg 6y ago
  The article specifically states this data was downloaded using the "Download Your Information tool on Instagram". The undeleted data wasn't from a cold backup or any backup, it was still on production systems.
  - parliament32 6y ago
    If this is a GDPR "right to access" request, which most "download your information" tools are, then backups are included. See https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/27625/gdpr-compliance-does-it-extend-to-database-backups-and-archived-records https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/27625/gdpr-complianc...
    - slg 6y ago
      Doesn't that link show that the how backups related to GDPR is still up for debate? The accepted answer that says they are included has 3 upvotes and there is an answer that says no they aren't included that has 2 upvotes. Either way, the legal requirement is a separate issue from what Instagram is actually doing. If that download tool is automated, I am rather confident in saying that it isn't combing through year old backups to get data.
      - parliament32 6y ago
        Ever wonder why "download my data" usually takes a few hours/days on most services before you receive the download link in your email? I promise you compiling the production data doesn't take that long. Backups are covered under GDPR, although when a user requests erasure you can say "your data will be rotated out in X months/years". Not sure how this applies to access, but I assume it's similar: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/#ib5 https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisandchris 6y ago
  I‘m not sure whether (if any) you habe cold backups at that scale. I imagine cost of the backup would be way to high.
superficialnerd 6y ago
That's what, being upfront about something makes users to trust them but it's Facebook we're talking about.

by ctvo 6y ago

throw_me_2020 6y ago

Deletion is very much a technical/organizational challenge. Imagine some engineer writing some feature you've never heard of and they decide they need data in a different format. They write a job to do this. Now imagine that job somehow has a bug which prevents the deletion system from understanding that copy exists. That bug could be non-obvious to find.

parliament32 6y ago

>It doesn't take a year to delete the data It does if you have cold backups that take a year to cycle out. They're often offsite, compressed, and incrementally hashed so finding individual items and removing them is really hard -- you're much better off just waiting for them to expire, and a year isn't an unreasonable amount of time.

slg 6y ago
The article specifically states this data was downloaded using the "Download Your Information tool on Instagram". The undeleted data wasn't from a cold backup or any backup, it was still on production systems.
- parliament32 6y ago
  If this is a GDPR "right to access" request, which most "download your information" tools are, then backups are included. See https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/27625/gdpr-compliance-does-it-extend-to-database-backups-and-archived-records https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/27625/gdpr-complianc...
  - slg 6y ago
    Doesn't that link show that the how backups related to GDPR is still up for debate? The accepted answer that says they are included has 3 upvotes and there is an answer that says no they aren't included that has 2 upvotes. Either way, the legal requirement is a separate issue from what Instagram is actually doing. If that download tool is automated, I am rather confident in saying that it isn't combing through year old backups to get data.
    - parliament32 6y ago
      Ever wonder why "download my data" usually takes a few hours/days on most services before you receive the download link in your email? I promise you compiling the production data doesn't take that long. Backups are covered under GDPR, although when a user requests erasure you can say "your data will be rotated out in X months/years". Not sure how this applies to access, but I assume it's similar: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protection/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-erasure/#ib5 https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chrisandchris 6y ago
I‘m not sure whether (if any) you habe cold backups at that scale. I imagine cost of the backup would be way to high.

superficialnerd 6y ago

That's what, being upfront about something makes users to trust them but it's Facebook we're talking about.