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Deleting Personal Data from Private Institutions?

Posted by Cliff on from the static-on-your-digital-paper-trail dept.

An anonymous reader asks: "This site has many readers who are familiar with the liabilities of personal data being stored on servers owned by private institutions. Bank records, phone records, credit records, flight records, basically any type of digital transaction can be (and likely are) stored indefinitely for whatever reason. Are there processes by which one can request a removal of personal data, or by signing contracts with these companies, do they own the rights to the information? If you have attempted such an erasure, have you encountered resistance?"

4 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Amazon.com won't... by scottsk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Back when amazon.com was a new company struggling to get customers, they said they would never share your personal information with anyone -- and then a few years later stabbed everyone in the back by reversing this policy. At that time, I did not want to be their customer anymore and wanted my customer data expunged. I was told that there was no way to stop being a customer and have historical information purged.

    1. Re:Amazon.com won't... by Reality+Master+101 · · Score: 4, Informative

      I just get into the online form for the company in question and enter crazy trash into all the blanks. Afterwards, all they have is junk that has nothing to do with me. The likelihood that anyone searches the backups is nil.

      That's assuming they don't keep easy-accessible audit trails and change logs for all of the fields. All of my e-commerce systems do. It's actually kind of funny when people change their information to garbage to keep us from tracking them when they bounce payments or something like that.

      --
      Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
  2. In Europe by MeltUp · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, here in Belgium it's simple. There's a law that gives you the right to request all info they have on you, and allows you to order them to delete it. I'm not 100% sure, but I think at least a few other European counties have a law like that.

    --
    Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
    1. Re:In Europe by Wally4u · · Score: 4, Informative

      The dutch privacy act give room for this. http://home.planet.nl/~privacy1/wbp_en_rev.htm You can demand you personal data to be destroyed except when it has a specific purpose (ie bank records, police records etc). If they fail to do so, or sell the data without written consent they can be fined.