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Recently I contacted Citi bank which kept sending me spam, including "bank statements" I could not access, which makes perfect sense given that I don't have an

Recently I contacted Citi bank which kept sending me spam, including "bank statements" I could not access, which makes perfect sense given that I don't have an account with them. I was told that they had no record of me and that if I want to be super duper sure they're right I should send a physical letter with a scan of my Id to their offices. After another few months of getting spammed by them, I sent them a GDPR data subject request instead. After a few days I received a message stating that: 1) my email was removed from their mailing list (yay) 2) they didn't/process have any of my personal data, but 3) since I shared my personal data with them _via the data subject request_, they're obliged to keep it I'm not angry, I just enjoy the irony and absurdity of the entire situation. In a sense, large orgs like this are as coherent as GPT-3 is away of what it's talking about.

surprisetalk 4y ago
The exact same kafkaesque situation is what inspired me to write this post! I don't want to send my personal information in a "delete my personal info" form to organizations who I never trusted with my data in the first place
- nugget 4y ago
  Dozens of new privacy laws have been passed in the last few years. In some cases, there are now severe financial penalties associated with non-compliance. This has started to empower internal teams within companies (who want to do the right thing) to actually do the right thing, and follow both the letter and spirit of these laws. I'm part of a project to build a global "delete me" button so I have insight into a range of different responses. Most companies still tend to be maliciously compliant or they simply ignore the request, but I'd be comfortable sending them my data. There are definitely bad actors out there for whom you're probably better off not sending them any request at all. Progress is slow but it's headed in the right direction.
  - surprisetalk 4y ago
    Thank you for the insight! I think a lot of people would be interested in a global "delete me" button. Where can I get updates on your project?

surprisetalk 4y ago

The exact same kafkaesque situation is what inspired me to write this post! I don't want to send my personal information in a "delete my personal info" form to organizations who I never trusted with my data in the first place

nugget 4y ago
Dozens of new privacy laws have been passed in the last few years. In some cases, there are now severe financial penalties associated with non-compliance. This has started to empower internal teams within companies (who want to do the right thing) to actually do the right thing, and follow both the letter and spirit of these laws. I'm part of a project to build a global "delete me" button so I have insight into a range of different responses. Most companies still tend to be maliciously compliant or they simply ignore the request, but I'd be comfortable sending them my data. There are definitely bad actors out there for whom you're probably better off not sending them any request at all. Progress is slow but it's headed in the right direction.
- surprisetalk 4y ago
  Thank you for the insight! I think a lot of people would be interested in a global "delete me" button. Where can I get updates on your project?