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24-Year-Old Asks Facebook For His Data, Gets 1,200 PDFs

Posted by Soulskill on from the ask-and-ye-shall-receive dept.

chicksdaddy writes "Be careful of what you ask for. That's a lesson Max Schrems of Vienna, Austria learned the hard way when he sent a formal request to Facebook for a copy of every piece of personal information that the social network had collected on him, as required under European law. After a wait, the 24-year-old law student got what he was seeking: a CD with all his data stored on it — 1,222 files in all. The collection of PDFs was roughly the length of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, but told a more mundane story: a record of Schrems' years-long relationship with the world's largest social network, including reams of data he had deleted. Now Schrems is pushing Facebook to disclose even more of what it knows."

17 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. It should be illegal..... by ThisIsNotMyHandel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It should be illegal for these companies to keep user generated content once the user deletes it.

    1. Re:It should be illegal..... by earls · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What if I want them to? Version control, anyone?

    2. Re:It should be illegal..... by drcheap · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It should be illegal for these companies to keep user generated content once the user deletes it.

      It's legal because the user agreed to let them keep it. I'm sure it's somewhere in those 6000 words nobody reads...probably something along the lines of "content uploaded by the user of the system becomes the sole property of the system" only more legalese sounding.

    3. Re:It should be illegal..... by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your personal knowledge of a prior event concerning me does not raise privacy concerns. Your automatic and routine compilation of all prior events concerning me and sharing of that information with intelligence agencies, law enforcement, and commercial partners does.

      --
      -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
    4. Re:It should be illegal..... by dougmc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You might be legally retarded.

      Huh?

      His point is perfectly valid. Wikipedia is, for example, all about version control. Somebody defaces a page? Revert.

    5. Re:It should be illegal..... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Funny

      and no matter what arbitrary laws or draconian regulations you force companies to abide by,

      We're going to mandate that they both delete data instantly to protect privacy and that they implement mandatory data retention periods so that data can be subpoenaed in the event of a crime.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    6. Re:It should be illegal..... by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It might be that the problems suggest, not that the proposed solution should be discarded, but that an alternative solution incorporating both the motivation for that solution and the problems inherent in executing it should be proposed.

      For example, perhaps all non-archival copies of the information could be deleted. Furthermore, if the backup system is constructed with the privacy goal in mind, it is possible to give the user control over the ability of the corporation to restore that user's information--a user, for example, might be permitted to order the company to destroy a key that allows decryption of backed up data entered by the user.

      --
      -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
    7. Re:It should be illegal..... by hawguy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "backups"

      That's why I said "reasonable timeframe". I don't expect them to delete the data immediately, maybe provide for 90 - 180 days to allow off-site tapes to be recycled. I'm not even asking for a secure delete, I'm ok with the data being technically recoverable from a disk or tape using forensic analysis.

      Maximum retention times are nothing new in the corporate world.

    8. Re:It should be illegal..... by Capt.+Skinny · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Your mundanity is your privacy

      Perhaps, as long as you remain obscure. But once you become a research target -- being suspected of a crime, mentioned in a news story, or applying for a security clearance, for example -- then all that data can provide seeds for speculation about your motives, integrity, or personality.

      The public IP addresses of my servers are buried in relative obscurity, just another 32-bit number among millions. But if I post a log file to a support forum then you can bet that I'll strip that IP address out.

    9. Re:It should be illegal..... by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Everyone is interesting to somebody, even if it's just their local bartender/coworker/pizza delivery guy/romantic rival... Now it used to be the case that it didn't matter as none of these everyday "mundane" acquaintances had the time, access or expertise to pull together a dossier but today it's pretty trivial.

    10. Re:It should be illegal..... by nitehawk214 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Moderating a Funny post Informative, that should be illegal.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    11. Re:It should be illegal..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      1) You could revert the next day. The OP didn't say it should be deleted instantly, just within a reasonable amount of time. Keeping data for 1 month to allow user reversals and another 5 months for backup tape recycling is reasonable. Keeping your data for years like they do now is a different matter.

      2) This backup/restore function you speak of is not available in Facebook anyway, despite them having the data available forever.

    12. Re:It should be illegal..... by N1AK · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about you stop trying to decide what should happen to other peoples data for them. I'm perfectly happy with Facebook keeping everything I delete by default. I would however appreciate the ability to actually delete something if I ever wanted to (which thus far hasn't happened). I would also like it if they were up front about what they're doing. It is misleading to call it deletion, which most people understand to mean it will cease to exist at some point, and then keep it indefinitely.

  2. Uh, what? by twotacocombo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This article's summary is rather baited. I fail to see how see how this guy "learned the hard way". It's not like they rolled up with a truck and dumped reams of paper in the middle of his living room. He received a CD with files in an easily searchable format. I'm sure he knew going into it he wasn't going to read through it all in a night, and probably doesn't contain any surprises. If anything, Facebook "learned the hard way", now that they have to divulge the massive amount of data that they store, upon request, which means they must employ people to do this. Are the costs incurred outweighed by any profit produced by hoarding this particular information?

  3. Not that uncommon by james_van · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've worked for a number of tech companies that dont actually delete anything, the simply mark the record "deleted" in the database. It's a pretty common practice that didn't really ever get talked about until it came to light that Facebook did it. Let's face it, once something is out there, it never ever really goes away, whether it be on Facebook or somewhere else,

    1. Re:Not that uncommon by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except for the company's own data, of course: then they manage to remember how to really delete data, e.g. old emails after N days, so that no future nosey prosecutor can dig it out of the database.

      --
      10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  4. Re:There is a clear difference by a+whoabot · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think I agree with you. I never understood why people complain about what sites do when all of what they do is in the terms.

    From what I can tell, pretty much everything there is to know about how your data is used by Facebook is on:

    http://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
    http://www.facebook.com/full_data_use_policy
    http://developers.facebook.com/policy/
    http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php

    All that comes in at about 15000 words. Sure, this will probably take you more than a few minutes to read and understand, unless you are Lt. Cmdr. Data. But if it is so important to you, than why not spend the time?

    I have an feeling that people are either too lazy for their own good, or just like to see injustice where there is none because they like the feeling of righteous indignation

    Sorry, I don't usually rant; please, anyone, do not take this post as impugning you personally; and I am probably missing many good counter-points.