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EU Commission Says People Have a 'Right To Be Forgotten' Online
nk497 writes "The European Commission wants to strengthen data protection rules to give more power to consumers — including the right to be forgotten online. Legislation it's looking to push through next year will let consumers know when and how their data is being used, and force companies to delete it when asked. 'People should be able to give their informed consent to the processing of their personal data,' the commission said in a statement. 'They should have the "right to be forgotten" when their data is no longer needed or they want their data to be deleted.'"
I can delete my Facebook account but I can't delete the photos someone else took with me in them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is a great idea, have your information deleted when you ask. There is 0 percent chance of ever seeing this in the US or Canada but it's a great concept. Why should someone have your data with out you knowing and better yet why should they keep it if you ask it to be destroyed.
Is this the same European Commission that decided some time ago to force data and voice service providers to keep phone and email records for years?
Will these data be subject to the "right to be forgotten", or government-retained stuff will be magically excepted?
Consistency, thy name is Europe.
Now, to force the removal of my name from old spam list using this.......
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
for deletion requests its as good as not having a law requiring the ability to delete the information.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Yes, they did mandate keeping the logs for a given time, but then they have to be deleted, and specified who has the right to get them. I.e., it takes a subpoena.
But, as opposed to... what? Just trusting that the companies will automatically delete those logs, and will never use them for marketing or whatnot? Just look at the Facebook for an example of how much better _that_ went than, you know, ooooh, scary inconsistent nanny-state Europe.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This is both a flippant comment AND a real question. It must be very hard to clean up all the data?
the problem starts when a right becomes an obligation, and involves more than just big companies in their own information
Or will it be included in the request to delete my request to delete my request to delete my data?
Just like Google censors results on request of countries, but lets users know that the country has requested the censoring?
Never trust a spiritual leader who cannot dance -- Mr. Miyagi
Do as I say, not as I do. This isn't merely the theme of all government; it is the foundation. Nearly everything government does would be illegal (and immoral) if it was done by an individual.
Why do so many people (primarily Americans) equate freedom with freedom for companies to take away freedom of individuals?
I praise EU for strengthening consumer laws, but I think this could be difficult to implement, depending on how strict it will be. Surely account information is often backed up by companies. Does this imply that they are forced by law to delete my accounts from backups as well? It sounds like a huge challenge. What if companies restore an old backup, including deleted account information? I'm all for consumer protection, but let's file this together with "company liability for computer software". Both are well meaning, and maybe even "right" in principle, but would have bad effects in practice.
If I want to be able to ask companies in the future to delete data about me, that means they have to keep that data clearly labelled as being about me.
Otherwise, they could "anonymise" it by removing my name, but that's not real anonymity. If my mobile phone operator removes my name, but keeps the info about what house Customer0001 spends the night in and what office Customer0001 spend 40 hours of daytime in, Monday to Friday, well, there's only one person in the world that fits Customer0001's profile. :-/
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... celebrate this announcement.
Why is it that UK ministers and policy makers keep saying and passing out stupid and lame laws, but EU guys seem to be intelligent and sane when it comes to technology. UK and USA should borrow some people like these from EU.
Where's my comment history DELETE button? ;)
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
This completely destroys the business model of many companies, including some big ones like Google.
if it gets on the internet, it lives forever
this is not a matter of legislation, it is a matter of the nature of the internet
therefore, if you don't want something to be attached to you on the internet, DON'T PUT IT ON THE BLEEPING INTERNET, moron
its not about the policy of one site. there are mirrors and copies and caches, and all sorts of your data mixed up all over the place. not to mention that the bleeping government, who you are asking to protect you(?), is the biggest violator!
PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY is the answer. YOU control what gets up there and what doesn't. beyond that, GAME OVER. nobody can save you from your own stupidity except YOU
you can't legislate this issue, and to try reveals a colossal display of ignorance. you can't save people from their ignorant selves: "oh i put it up there but now i don't want it there"
really? good for you. welcome to the internet, moron
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Another poster compared privacy today and in the pre-Internet world, which got me to thinking: Until now, innovations in information technology have generally reduced privacy by making it easier, by many orders of magnitude, to copy, distribute, and find information. Any info about you that's on the Web, for example, can be immediately distributed across the world, copied by whoever wants it, and found via Google.
But information technology could also be used to improve our privacy over the pre-Internet world: Encryption, of course, but also anonymization, DRM (for your personal info, such as copy restrictions and expiration dates), and using search engines to automatically find other data, including the pattern recognition engines that can find photos. Some of these could be regulatory requirements (businesses must anonymize personal info as much as possible, must use DRM with copy restrictions and an expiration date, encrypted it, and the business is responsible for monitoring the web for errant copies). Businesses already use these tools to protect their data and online identity; there's no reason private citizens can't use them too.
In some ways, private citizens could have more control, not less, of their privacy and identity if they use the tools in their favor.
1. If you think your data in the USA would only be given to the pizzerias, and not to the USA government... heh. It's funny. You do know they subpoenad such stuff from Google and others already, right?
2. Oooh, scary Euro-fascists, 'cause you can dig up something from 65 years ago. Heh. Ah, the joys of semi-literate trolls who never heard of anything after WW2 because it's not in the Hollywood movies they mistake for education... Besides, I guess it saves the home-schooled right from acknowledging that the rest of the world has actually moved out of the 40's.
3. But if you want to compare fascists, let's compare fascists.
The USA moved a minority to concentration camps for, pretty much, fearing that their political sympathies may not be the proper ones... when? Oh wait, it was during the WW2 too.
The USA had the idiotic McCarthy scare... when? Until the late 50's? Shouldn't you remember that too, if for Europe the 1936-1945 era counts as recent enough?
The USA imprisoned and tortured people for mere suspicions, and skipping all human rights or safeguards of the rule of law... when? Oh, wait, that was in the 21'th century. I guess the 1945 is scarier because it's more recent than that, huh? Oh wait, it isn't.
The USA datamined not just phone records, but even grocery lists, to try to find out who's a muslim... when? Oh, wait, that's 21'st century too.
So, remind me, which of the two should you fear more? The ones who actually tortured people for the mere suspicion of supporting the wrong gang 2-3 years ago, or those who did it 65 years ago?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Shame I don't have any points available now - this is one of the best posts of recent times - informative and rationally/calmly worded.
Sounds an awful lot like the uk data protection act of 1984, which applied to all data, written and electronic, held on an individual.
"Personal information may be kept for no longer than is necessary and must be kept up to date."
"Data must not be disclosed to other parties without the consent of the individual about whom it is about..."
"Entities holding personal information are required to have adequate security measures in place. Those include technical measures (such as firewalls) and organisational measures (such as staff training)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act_1984#History
Looking through the main points of the Act, it makes you wonder why you don't hear more about nefarious data-collecting companies being taken to the courts here in the U.K.
Tip for anyone who will be a parent(cue slashdot sex jokes:P): Pick the absolute most common name for your child. If there is a famous person with your last name, give your child the same first name as the celebrity. If you have a super uncommon last name, use your spouses last name. It's really one of the few ways you can protect your privacy online anymore, ie by making you a needle in a haystack of people with the same name. I know if I have a son I am certainly naming him after an actor that shares the same last name as I do.
Monstar L
The government protects the rights of its citizens against private industry? Sign me up!
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
After reading all these new rights the EU is approving, maybe I should move there.
Anybody need an english-speaking engineer? Or maybe a German-to-English translator of written works?
(Maybe the market's no better in the EU than the US?)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Because once upon a time, during a period of time called the "Cold War", America stood for individual and corporate freedom against a "Government Run" evil communist empire.
And the mentality of "Better Dead than Red" and "Government Intervention = Evil Commie" seems to be still alive today.
Yes, corporate AND individual freedom... supposedly. But that was not my question. Why do so many people defend the corporate freedom to inhibit personal freedom?
Yay! And thank you.
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Because for some reason, if the government puts his foot in the door, its the first step towards "Socialism" and 'the dark side'.
Corporations will fill the 'leader' voice without any consensus or something like that.
Moroever, when you have large comapnies - they can afford to pay for advertising which turns you towards their side. Do you wonder how many "Obama's Healthcare Plan == Bad" complaints came from (or were backed by) private hospitals and insurance companies?
By the way, evil? Like Pinochet evil?
It would be very nice if social networks had an official backup and restore feature to your profile. Then you could truly have control of your data, and delete or restore your account as needs without much fuss.
Anyone know knows how an enterprise backup system works knows that this is nearly impossible. You'd have to know their backup practices to really know the extent of data retention but for a company that size, I offer the following example: Since their (your) data is worth big $$$, they probably run nightly incremental, weekly backups (maybe), monthly backups, and finally yearly backups. Given DR concerns the might have global mirrors and off-site tapes (definitely one of the two). So all in all, one picture you post could represent literally dozens of instances. Purging all this data out would be impossible at an extremely massive burden to the company.
What I know, is mine.
Perhaps, but how you came to find it out and who you shared it with are often under your control. We don't (yet) have the ability to selectively erase people's memories, but we certainly can punish undesirable behaviour, such as collecting information by going around spying on someone, or betraying a confidence by sharing with the whole world some sensitive information you were given privately.
In any case, most of the serious problems in this area are not about what an individual person knows, but about what an organisation "knows". Organisations can be large and disproportionately powerful compared to individuals, and it is necessary to rebalance their relative strength to prevent abuse of individual rights and freedoms.
In the particular case of corporations, we are always talking about an artificial legal entity that is granted a certain status in law because we consider it useful in society to do so. Such corporations should be afforded only such rights and freedoms as continue to benefit society. We can restrict their behaviour as much as we feel like, up to and including eliminating them completely, if it is in the best interests of our society to do so.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The right to be forgotten is the right to control other people's minds. I realize they don't mean it quite that literally, but the way they do mean it is extremely intrusive as well.
Since I've been using the internet, I've lived under the assumption that anything I attach my name to online can and will be found and traced back to me at some point in my life. If I don't want to have that happen, I use fake info or don't create an account (like right now), so the most that people could realistically trace is that I'm writing from behind a company firewall, and still not know it's actually me writing.
For some reason, people seem to have lost that mantra and actually expect that their info stays private online. Really? Do you people also expect that when you put all your personal info down for a raffle at a store, they're not going to use your info for marketing and possibly sell that info?
Stop expecting people to do what's right, expect that anytime you type any personal info, regardless of password or privacy protection, that someone, somewhere, will steal/use that, and act accordingly. And that goes doubly true for places like Facebook, which have a giant, "please focus here if you want dumb peoples' personal info" signs attached to it. (and mod me as cynical)
Or, do what I do, sit back and laugh at all the idiots on places like Facebook losing their private info because they think they're safe.
How will that work if, say, a European citizen complains that Facebook (based in the U.S.) has been mis-using their personal data?
America, Home of the Brave.
'They should have the "right to be forgotten" when their data is no longer needed or they want their data to be deleted.'"
This makes me wonder: who decides when the data is no longer needed?
"No sir, we need to retain your name, address, social security number, immunization history, telephone number, record of charitable contributions and the name of the woman you just broke up with on Facebook in order to optimize our customer satisfaction and courtesy first program. Yes sir, you are the customer, but sir, that does not necessarily mean you are always right, or even that you are right most of the time. In fact, just let me check our records of your compiled Slashdot comment history...here we go, sir, we have you marked here as being 'right' approximately 32% of the time. Have a nice day!"
OTOH, people being able to call up and get data deleted whenever they want, without proper safeguards, could be somewhat iffy as well (although much better than the way it is now!)
"Hello ma'am, yes, this is the customer hotline for Facebook . Yes, we do have your profile in our servers, and it shows that you are quite active, thank you for your business. Oh, you'd like us to remove your profile completely? Including the 5,145 photos in your albums? I'm sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you over the background noise, could you please ask that woman to stop yelling about the b$*ch who stole her boyfriend? Thank you. Now, can I ask you for some identifying identification, such as your birthday? Thank you, 'my slut of a mother spat me out sometime in June' is close enough for our requirements. Yes ma'am, consider it done, and let me say that we are very sorry to lose your business. Have a nice day."
ahhh...reductio ad absurdum and a coffee on a Friday...good times.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
This will be as reliable as when you ask your e-mail to be removed from some advertising mailing list. Even some "presumed" respectable business periodically loses their opt-out lists. For instance, I see this with some airliners and telcos.
Slashdot does not allow you to delete your posts or close your account. How come there's never any discussion of that in these threads?
How will this work with credit agencies? If I go bankrupt, and then request that TransUnion remove its records about me (and my poor credit score), are they going to be required to do so? I think some lenders might have a problem with this.
I mean, how is this any different than say, print media? If someone shows up in the newspaper, it's not like they can ask themselves to be removed.
Nor would I ever remove someone's info if some EU Nazi were to request me to remove info from my site.
The EU is starting to sound more like old-school Russia (and the removal of people from photos) and Nazi Germany (just the removal of people).
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
they seem to want to keep more and more on me and to compel others to do the same - eg what web sites I have been to, my movements indexed by mobile 'phone cell, spy cameras at the road side, ...
Oh. I thought he was on about Northern Ireland. There are lots of people who think they know all about it but they've never been there and couldn't even point to it on a map. And that's map of Ireland. You know, those fat ones.
I think the former would have been happy to make it happen the other way round. For once, an "in Soviet Russia..." joke would be on topic.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Forget about twitter, facebook & google -- they all give you a way to delete your account which OK people can go dig through archives or whatever -- but man, Wikipedia, there is no way to say "I am over that topic & don't want to know my 15 year old self was so obsessed about it."