GDPR and Boards.ie post removal policy **update linked in OP 24/5/18**

Sleeper12

BowSideChamp wrote:

Why don't boards just not allow the user to delete their own posts? Like every other site. They can decide the information that they no longer consent being online.

What's the point of boards.ie if posts are removed willy nilly. Conversions in threads would make no sense. You wouldn't be able to follow what's going on.

What if I quote your comments in my reply. You could delete your original comment but it would still be there in my quote. Your information is still in my comment. You can only request information that you gave about yourself be removed. You'd have no right for my comments to be removed from a public forum even if I identified you

Chorus_suck wrote:

This post has been deleted.

If a post doesn't identify you then it doesn't have to be removed so long as your IP & email address are deleted. You can request the it to be removed but if it's not breaking the code then it does not have to be removed

The directive is so you can have more control over the data that you give a website. How long they store it & what they do with the information. Many sites sell your data, use your email address for newsletters etc. On my site people give name address & email address. Payment details are processed by PayPal. We store this information for 7 years for tax purposes. We use it for nothing else. We don't even sent emails once goods are delivered.

Hurrache

Beasty wrote: »

I totally resent that comment

Yes there are probably hundreds of people on this site that I know or that know me. Most of those are people I introduced myself to or have introduced themselves to me or have been introduced by someone else

I have made it perfectly clear in this thread that it would be easy for people to identify me based on my posts. That was not the point I was making. I was indicating that looking at certain personal information does not mean you can be identified by it. The posts on this site that could be aggregated to identify me probably number significantly less than 100. Does that give me the right to have another 30,000 posts that were commentary providing information or indeed my opinion on matters deleted. I do not know as I am not a lawyer but it would seem pretty excessive if the law does permit that.

That's the debate isn't it? But as your identity is out there, either willingly to some and unwillingly to others, you may argue that it now doesn't matter if the posts used to identify you are deleted, all your other posts are now associated with the real you.

Permabear

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Sleeper12

Permabear wrote:

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I don't think boards.ie have said that they will do this. If a post identifies you then you will have to flag it & it can be removed. Posts that don't identify you won have to be removed I assume.

It's not like boards.ie are changing the goalposts. It's been the same rules for years. We've all used boards.ie knowing that it's up to us to protect our identity. The difference now is that there is a law allowing you to request some of your comments be removed.

Even if your posts are removed if I quoted them in a reply then they'll still be part of my post. The law is so you can delete data that you provided. The law doesn't cover the my posts giving data about you, although it is against boards.ie rules to identify another member.

Hurrache

Sleeper12 wrote: »

The law doesn't cover the my posts giving data about you,

Why?

Permabear

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Sleeper12

Hurrache wrote:

Why?

Because it only covers data that you give.

You can't sensor what I say about you. You can sue me if it's not true but apart from boards.ie rules (&the fact that I don't know you) there's nothing stopping me giving or making comments identifying you. It's not illegal for me to identify you.

Can you imagine you leaving a review about a job I do for you & I can request that it is removed? It would be a world where we can't voice an opinion. Can you imagine Facebook having to remove comments made about someone. If I post a video of you standing outside your house, I only catch you as I video my dog. It's a video recorded in a public place so perfectly legal yet it identifies you and your home.

I think some are expecting too much from this new law. We've had the right to be forgotten for close to 10 years now. I'm betting no one asked boards.ie to remove their information under that law. Infact some posters continued to give more information that identifies them since that law came into effect.

Permabear

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Hurrache

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Because it only covers data that you give.

But you were talking about posts of yours with quotes from another user within them in the context of that question.

Beasty

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I presume under the new legislation I would be allowed (as a regular user and not as an Admin), to request those posts be removed or edited to remove that personally identifiable information. That's much the same as the site has operated

I cannot though control what anyone has already done with any of that info (such as downloading copies of posts or storing that info in their own brain/memory). In the same way hundreds of posters know who I am I know the real life identities of similar numbers of users. No one has any power to clear my personal memory of that info.

I would add this knowing of so many posters probably only really happens in a relatively small number of niche forums with Cycling being one where many posters have linked up in real life through club connections and meeting up for spins/races

Some posters think they have the right to have all posts removed and I remain to be convinced. Whether the site changes policy to allow such removal (or indeed some kind of anonymisation) is arguably a separate matter.

It would also be interesting to understand what posters would think if the OP of this thread (for example) chose to request their OP and all follow up posts be deleted. We'd probably end up with cries of censorship

Sleeper12

Permabear wrote:

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And its a good rule for boards.ie to have. Doesn't bother me to be known. I've never gotten someone making another posters name public. It must be toughest on the Mods. They are always in the firing line.

BowSideChamp

Burglars are using information on Strava to target people with expensive bikes. We had the case of the home invasion a few months ago in Dublin with them breaking in with sledgehammers looking for a particular bike while the homeowner was upstairs. Information posted on the cycling forums/ training logs can lead to similar outcomes for users.

Sleeper12

Hurrache wrote:

But you were talking about posts of yours with quotes from another user within them in the context of that question.

Yes but when I post it with quotes it's my data not the original poster. I have ownership.

Sleeper12

Beasty wrote:

It would also be interesting to understand what posters would think if the OP of this thread (for example) chose to request their OP and all follow up posts be deleted. We'd probably end up with cries of censorship

I'm not linking all of your post purely to keep this short but I totally agree with everything you said in that post.

_Dara_

Permabear wrote: »

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The difference to sites like Facebook is that is a real name platform. Some people don't use it that way but generally people post under their name.

Here, people use the veil of anonymity to post more openly and freely. That's the appeal. The ability of people to delete all their posts strikes as the heart of what messageboards are about. They are different from the likes of Facebook, Twitter. I don't even consider messageboards to be social media. I use it completely differently to those media.

What you are suggesting would be very detrimental to the site. Maybe it's the way things are moving but it would be such a shame. I'd lose interest in the site personally, if old threads became unreadable.

People removing their posts will destroy old threads. Boards.ie is such a great archive and that will be lost if people can erase all their posts. What a shame that will be.

Hurrache wrote: »

This is a red herring that keeps getting thrown out. The fact that logical structure of threads may become all messed up, which nobody disagrees with, bears no relevance to anything.

Aaaah, it's very relevant.

oscarBravo

Chorus_suck wrote: »

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...and the admins have already explained that personally identifying information can be and has been removed on request.

I'm reminded of the old cartoon with the frustrated shopper pointing at an item on the shelf while the shopkeeper tells him "don't bother pointing at it, the computer says we don't have it."

BowSideChamp

oscarBravo wrote: »

...and the admins have already explained that personally identifying information can be and has been removed on request.

I'm reminded of the old cartoon with the frustrated shopper pointing at an item on the shelf while the shopkeeper tells him "don't bother pointing at it, the computer says we don't have it."

An example was then posted of a user requesting their post removed and the admin refusing the request.

seamus

Chorus_suck wrote: »

This is a shocking attitude tbh.

And typical of the powers that be in this place.

I haven't been a mod or admin in like a decade or something.

If you're prone to making basic assumption errors like that, I'd be skeptical of your interpretation of GDPR legislation tbh.

Hurrache

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Yes but when I post it with quotes it's my data not the original poster. I have ownership.

You don't become the data owner.

_Dara_ wrote: »

The


Aaaah, it's very relevant.

Not with regards to GDPR it isn't.

Sleeper12

Hurrache wrote:

You don't become the data owner.

When I post it in my comment its my data. I'm not saying that I have copyright but neither would the original poster. There's not a law in the world stopping me repeating what someone else says

Do you not think that posters should take a bit of responsibility themselves in all this? For example many who post on the LGBT forums take responsibility for their own protection & have separate accounts for posting in said forum. I don't take precautions myself because I don't post anything that I'm ashamed of. I try engage here in the same way that I'd engage with friends sitting around a table in the pub. I don't have a different opinion in the pub to here. I'm not afraid of my religious beliefs or lack of. I have the same conversation in the pub about politics or anything in the news.

Permabear

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Zaph

BowSideChamp wrote: »

An example was then posted of a user requesting their post removed and the admin refusing the request.

Just for clarity, they asked for someone else's post to be removed, not their own.

Zaph

Permabear wrote: »

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In general, yes it is. However if somebody requests that they be permitted to open a second account to post personally identifying or sensitive information about themselves in a forum that doesn't have unregged posting we will generally permit it. The only proviso is that the account can only be used for posting in the forum that they specifically requested it for, they can't post all over the site with it as with their main account.

Bob24

BowSideChamp wrote: »

An example was then posted of a user requesting their post removed and the admin refusing the request.

Also removing the post from the website is not enough. The data has to be completly erased from boards servers.

I think due to the nature of the service provided by boards there is some confusion on this thread about what deleting means: hiding a post from public viewing on the website but retaining its content in a database whould not qualify to consider it deleted in the context of GDPR.

Chorus_suck

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Sleeper12

Permabear wrote:

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Yes many do use separate accounts for that thread. It's understandable that someone might want to. Personally I believe that the rule on duplicate accounts is aimed at the messers and trolls. Some of the real troublemakers seem to use a lot more than one account. Then you'll get someone posting boasting that they are on the dole raking in money and living in a house you & I pay for. Click into their name and you will find that they joined that day. Trolls. It's best not to feed them.

Sleeper12

Bob24 wrote:

Also removing the post from the website is not enough. The data has to be completly erased from boards servers.

Bob24 wrote:

I think due to the nature of the service provided by boards there is some confusion on this thread about what deleting means: hiding a post from public viewing on the website but retaining its content in a database whould not qualify to consider it deleted in the context of GDPR.

I don't think there any confusion tbh. Hiding a post was perfectly OK & still is for a few more days but after that it must be totally removed. I haven't seen anyone claiming different on this thread

Sleeper12

Chorus_suck wrote:

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Chorus_suck wrote:

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Ah here. Admins have explained several times that they do remove details identifing people on request. I'm sure that if they don't believe that it identifies you then they don't delete it.

Quoting the rules is pointless as any reasonable person can see that the rule covers them in that you can't demand (up until now) something gets removed but I assumed that no reasonable request would be refused. I've seen dozens of times over the years where mods alter posts removing personal information. I've reported stuff like phone numbers or personal addresses on behalf of newbies and have seen it almost instantly removed or altered.

Chorus_suck

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Bob24

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I don't think there any confusion tbh. Hiding a post was perfectly OK & still is for a few more days but after that it must be totally removed. I haven't seen anyone claiming different on this thread

Anyone saying that the existing practice of admins and mods “deleting” posts upon request when they contain private information is enough to be GDPR compliant (and I have seen a few posts making that argument) is probably making that confusion. This is unless when a mod deletes a post from the website it is completely deleted from any server/database boards operates and backups of these servers/databases are GDPR compliant, but my understanding is that this is not the case.