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

Boards.ie: Mark

While this subject is quite wide and varied, can we please keep the discussion to GDPR and Boards rather than looking into the specifics of individual users, their motivations for deleting posts, etc.

Franz Von Peppercorn, your post won't be deleted unless you request it, but the quoted post may if a request is lodged.

Thanks given by a user can be removed if requested, to answer another question.

OldMrBrennan83

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Where was your wife mentioned, except by me to point out that you had mentioned them previously. I know that because you did. ( And at that time I assumed you had closed your account). You even participated in an AMA.

Rather than screw up all the threads you had ever participated in maybe you shouldn't have revealed so much about yourself to begin with?

The problem is simple, if this catches on the forum dies. Shall we all come in every day and delete all posts? Maybe every week? Every second week?

Will most threads be full of POST DELETED going forward? Will all long running threads lose any semblance of a discussion?

How often are you going to delete your posts - is this post of mine going to disappear soon?

You post can't be deleted by anybody only you, only the part you quoted can be deleted by Permabear. It's not hard to understand that.

Also, who goes back and reads old threads? There's plenty of posts here every day to keep things current.

Franz Von Peppercorn

The quotes are also being deleted as far as I can see. I've decided to not quote or engage with posters who delete.

There are plenty of long running threads on this forum.

As I said this is an overreaction. Here is the Wordpress forums on the issue.

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gdpr-and-the-forum-of-wordpress-org/

The only data we have in this forum that could be considered to fall under those guidelines would be data in your forum profile. All of that data is available for you to edit (including total deletion) at any time. We do not keep records of it.

We have been discussing this internally, and we are working on a plan to make a “delete account” mechanism, which will effectively kill a WordPress.org account entirely. The data in the profile would be deleted, the profile would be removed from view, and the username would become blocked for any future use by anybody.
Threads in the forums, however, do not qualify as personal data. If you have posted any personal data in the forums, then a moderator will quite happily remove that specific information on request. Heck, they do that already, frequently removing signatures, which we actively do not allow those to be used in the forums in the first place.

However, the thread itself, the questions posted by users and the answers that other users provide them, does not fall under the category of “personal data”. The only remaining personal data that is left is the username, and the plan is for the account-nuking interface to also remove that remaining information from display. The username itself cannot be removed for technical reasons (we have to retain them in order to prevent them from being reused by others), but showing threads that do not contain personal data as being made by “Anonymous” or similar is planned.


Thats the internal forum of a major provider of software to hose blogs, website and forums. I agree with them.

Boards.ie: Mark

Patww79 wrote: »

Is it done by the same process?

As in, by e-mailing datarequests@boards.ie or PMing Boards.ie: GDPR? In which case, yes.

OldMrBrennan83

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

The quotes are also being deleted as far as I can see. I've decided to not quote or engage with posters who delete.

There are plenty of long running threads on this forum.

As I said this is an overreaction. Here is the Wordpress forums on the issue.

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/gdpr-and-the-forum-of-wordpress-org/

The only data we have in this forum that could be considered to fall under those guidelines would be data in your forum profile. All of that data is available for you to edit (including total deletion) at any time. We do not keep records of it.

We have been discussing this internally, and we are working on a plan to make a “delete account” mechanism, which will effectively kill a WordPress.org account entirely. The data in the profile would be deleted, the profile would be removed from view, and the username would become blocked for any future use by anybody.
Threads in the forums, however, do not qualify as personal data. If you have posted any personal data in the forums, then a moderator will quite happily remove that specific information on request. Heck, they do that already, frequently removing signatures, which we actively do not allow those to be used in the forums in the first place.

However, the thread itself, the questions posted by users and the answers that other users provide them, does not fall under the category of “personal data”. The only remaining personal data that is left is the username, and the plan is for the account-nuking interface to also remove that remaining information from display. The username itself cannot be removed for technical reasons (we have to retain them in order to prevent them from being reused by others), but showing threads that do not contain personal data as being made by “Anonymous” or similar is planned.


Thats the internal forum of a major provider of software to hose blogs, website and forums. I agree with them.

The quotes are being deleted but your post won't be. You are the only one who can delete your post.

seamus

dudara wrote: »

To penalise them for doing so would be a d*ck move (and also possibly illegal)

Nah, wouldn't be illegal. It's a private site, there's no right of access, and no restrictions on how and why a ban can be applied.

Boards would be perfectly entitled to bundle the deletion and account closure processes together if it wished.

I suspect at least a couple of those 56 accounts will be serial requestors and will start posting again and put in a new deletion request every 3-6 months. It's that kind of nonsense which a ban could be used for.

Beasty

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

From the update posted by Sean:

Boards.ie: Sean wrote: »

For closed accounts all personal data (other than users’ posts) will be deleted. Therefore, posts made by users whose accounts were subsequently closed cannot be associated with other information held by Boards that relates to an identified or identifiable natural person and as such are not considered personal data and GDPR does not apply to this data.

In specific instances where the content of a post contains sensitive data or data that could be used to identify an individual we will consider requests to edit or delete the post; these will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

If your old accounts remain open then I presume you can have posts deleted (assuming you are in a position to confirm you are the holder of such accounts)

OldMrBrennan83

Just to confirm, does anything need to be done by a user if there's post quotes remaining after deletion or is it part of the process of checking after the script runs?

Permabear

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blackwhite

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Some posters get protection from abuse by mods - others appear to be considered fair game.

When countless feedback threads over the years highlight consistency as a flaw in modding it's a pity that some common standards (still!) haven't been brought to bear

ayux4rj6zql2ph

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Boards.ie: Niamh

Ahwell, please re-read the charter, only users with 100+ posts and registered for 3 months + may post in Feedback. As a result I've removed your post (and a reply to it).

ayux4rj6zql2ph

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seamus

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Agreed.

However, what this does illustrate is that GDPR does not apply to individuals and their memories.

A person can erase their post history, but they cannot erase the fact that they wrote those posts and they were read by others.

Part of this process should make it clear that erasing your posts does not prevent other users from bringing up the content of those posts from memory, and therefore posters should be vigilant about how much they reveal of themselves and not rely on GDPR or other anonymisation functions as a fallback plan.

Another reason why I think "delete everything" should also be a de facto account closure, but the office team have obviously chosen not to go this way.

Boards.ie: Mark

Sensitive posts equates to "I am Joey Jo-Jo Junior Shabadoo" or "I live at _____" or something of that ilk. You are welcome to send us links, as we have said.

StupidLikeAFox

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

Ahwell, please re-read the charter, only users with 100+ posts and registered for 3 months + may post in Feedback. As a result I've removed your post (and a reply to it).

*cough* Permabear *cough*

Patww79

Patww79 wrote: »

You post can't be deleted by anybody only you, only the part you quoted can be deleted by Permabear. It's not hard to understand that.

Also, who goes back and reads old threads? There's plenty of posts here every day to keep things current.

I was actually reading through an old thread today, and in amongst several of your posts that have been deleted, one of your posts that I quoted is still visible.

Nothing too incriminating, however

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Franz Von Peppercorn

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Use those PMs then - its a record of what they then knew about you.

Bobeagleburger

seamus wrote: »

Nah, wouldn't be illegal. It's a private site, there's no right of access, and no restrictions on how and why a ban can be applied.

Boards would be perfectly entitled to bundle the deletion and account closure processes together if it wished.

I suspect at least a couple of those 56 accounts will be serial requestors and will start posting again and put in a new deletion request every 3-6 months. It's that kind of nonsense which a ban could be used for.

Absolutely, you can be sure there'll be a few with nothing better to do.

Boards.ie: Niamh

....... we cannot remove the entire posting history of an account that a user cannot prove ownership of. Linking to public posts that contain sensitive information does not prove that the account belongs to anyone.

We are trying to meet users half way by agreeing to remove sensitive information that should not be public regardless of who posted it, e.g. a phone number, address, etc. We regularly remove such items from posts in the Talk To forums when reported by other users, not necessarily the OP.

If there is any doubt that the account belongs to one person, then that opens up the possibility that it actually belongs to someone else. This someone else may not want their posts deleted.

Bob24

seamus wrote: »

Boards would be perfectly entitled to bundle the deletion and account closure processes together if it wished.

I wouldn’t be so sure. It could be seen as forcing people to forfeit their rights under GDPR if they want to keep using boards - which is clearly illegal.

Not black and white, but I’d agree with the other poster in saying it would possible be illegal.

Nody

Bob24 wrote: »

I wouldn’t be so sure. It could be seen as forcing people to forfeit their rights under GDPR if they want to keep using boards - which is clearly illegal.

Not black and white, but I’d agree with the other poster in saying it would possible be illegal.

You have no legal right to use boards with or without GDPR and all GDPR does is give you an option to have your information deleted by a company. It does not give you right to keep using said company or their services because you feel like it before or after.

Bob24

Nody wrote: »

You have no legal right to use boards with or without GDPR and all GDPR does is give you an option to have your information deleted by a company. It does not give you right to keep using said company or their services because you feel like it before or after.

I don’t have any legal right to use boards, but boards has a legal requirement to ensure that the option of accessing their service is not bundled with any condition/consent which prevents users from enjoying their full rights under GDPR.

Forcing a full account closure when someone makes a partial deletion request is borderline doing that, and possible crossing the line (essentially it is like saying: “as soon is you invoke GDPR, you’re banned” whereas GDPR clearly grants a right to request partial data deletion or correction).

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Bobeagleburger

Good point on the post counts, even if it was a joke.

Do posters who wipe their record need to re-apply for forums that require a minimum post count? I'm assuming not..

Permabear

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Bob24

....... wrote: »

Long deleted now - and some of them on the old accounts.

The point I am making is, if mods have been able to name my past accounts to me in pm's, then boards.ie has a way of knowing who owns what old accounts.

So asking anyone to prove what accounts they once had is unnecessary. AND - the burden of evidence they are looking for as proof is unreasonable. No one is going to remember what email address they were using 10 odd years ago.

I’d say if you do indeed have copies of PMs from boards mods linking your current account to previous accounts, you have a very strong legal case to demonstrate that the content of these accounts is potential your identifiable personal data as someone within boards is able to connect them.

Even if there is no logical link between those accounts on the boards database, the simple fact that a mod has it stored anywhere that those accounts are related is data managed by boards which links that old account to your new one.