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UK Privacy Watchdog: 'Right To Be Forgotten' On the Web Unworkable
An anonymous reader writes "Want to be invisible to Google? Apparently you can't, at least according to the European Commission and Information Commissioner's Office. '"The right to be forgotten worries us as it makes people expect too much," said [deputy commissioner David Smith]. Instead, Smith said the focus should be on the "right to object" to how personal data is used, as this places the onus on businesses to justify the collection and processing of citizens' data. "It is a reversal of the burden of proof system used in the existing process. It will strengthen the person's position but it won't stop people processing their data." EC data protection supervisor Peter Hustinx added the right to be forgotten is currently unworkable as most countries are divided on what qualifies as sensitive personal data. "I believe the right to be forgotten is an overstatement," said Hustinx."
That is the problem. Back in them good old days, You can make a ass out of yourself, and only a few people or perhaps the town know. But after you left the town you had a clean slate.
Now today with Google and Facebook, are assitry is now shared across the globe and will stay embedded in peoples mines for a long time. Oh wait weren't you the Star Wars Kid, or that Girl who didn't know where Canada was.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
What about the EU right to be lobbied? I am seriously worried that the EU might make a decision based on the will of the people rather than the Council and Commission as entirely owned by big business, or the Parliament which in theory directly represents the people but in practice is easy to influence.
I'm more worried about the crackdown on using alternate identities online. My friends know who I am, but no one else should be able to pull up dirt on me based on random dirt they find associated with my name.
At the same time, if there's an actual crime being investigated, it's takes some pretty trivial sleuthing to trace back an alternate id to a person, but takes some effort just out of reach for a telemarketer or employer or griefer, and could require an approval process and leave a paper trail back to the requester.
So I'm sort of upset that GooTube / Facebook push for realname ids. But for the most part they let you get away with using your alternicks... for now. But that's the right we need to fight to preserve.
All you need is a damn regex for your data and you're done. What BS are they feeding these guys?
Let's see here. We have the EU defining a legal civil right. The corporate world says "oh noez! We can't do that! Our business model is BASED around violating that civil right! We totally can't just delete all that precious and lucrative data just because some prudes don't want to be included!"
If we adapt this, and replace some other legally recognized civil right, like say-- the right to the sanctity of one's own body, the absurdity of this attestment becomes painfully clear.
"Oh noez! We can't do that, our business model is BASED on forcing prepubescent children to perform sexual services without getting any permission of compensation! We can't just let those very lucrative child prostitutes go just because some prudes don't want to take diseased cock all day! We make our money selling child prostitution services! These so called "rights" are completely unworkable! How can we sell reliable prostitution services if we can't force people to be whores for us!?"
Seriously. That's what I see when I see these kinds of arguments. If your business mode revolves round violating other people's rights, then you DON'T have any right to perform that line of business. The fact that it is "unworkable" is fucking INTENTIONAL.
Instead of focusing on ways to forget, we should focus on ways to reliably prevent such information from existing in the first place. If I really hate you and know enough about you, I can target scrapers at everywhere you frequent, and deleting posts from facetweetspace won't help you if I have my own local backup.
The better solution is for people to understand what information is being transmitted, what it could be used for, and to provide robust tools for reliably limiting that information if they so care to. Some people may not care about their information, and that's fine, but everyone should know enough to make that decision for themselves.
"this places the onus on businesses to justify the collection and processing of citizens' data"
So you basically have no privacy, they can collect as much data about you as they want and share it to whomever they want, as long as you have the right to know what's being collected and can request correction of "mistakes" in the dataset. For example you can correct Google's profile about you and state that you're not into vinyl clothes, you just buy them to better fit in at BSDM parties.
This sure simplifies writing a privacy policy: "We collect any and all data you give us forever and by using our service you agree we can use it for any purpose".
You're going to feel silly when it turns out the posts are coming from inside the Slashdot webserver, and aliasing to 127.0.0.1 just speeds up the posting.
Well, if he wasn't using something as primitive as a hosts file, he could add *.slashdot.org :)
I've lived in Europe my whole life, my privacy is the most important thing in my life after my family. FUCK YOU
Hide yourself behind a wall of obfuscation.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You do not have a right to be forgotten. Think about what that means. That means you do something and I witness it. Do you have a right to compel me to forget it ever happened? Of course not. My right to be secure in my thoughts, the written expression thereof (which is what they really mean by forget), and my effects is a real right. Your desire for me to forget something you did is not.
You have a right to privacy. Exercise it by not publishing information you want kept private. You can't put the genie back in the bottle, and short of fraud or some other malfeasance being responsible for the breach of privacy in the first place, you have no right to command that anyone try.
Who the hell voted these people in, oh wait, no-one - these Commissioners, who consistently put forward pro-corporate anti-citizen laws need to be removed from EU's political system and the people who choose the laws need to be elected, anyone disagree?
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
The Orwellian State (i.e. the UK these days) is totally inept to answer this question.
It's beyond Google, Facebook, and Twitter, though. If you use a membership card at a retailer like Costco, a pharmacy, or a grocery store then they know a lot about you. If you use a credit card then the credit card knows a lot about you. Your bank knows a lot about you. Your wireless carrier knows a lot about you, unless you keep the phone at home and don't actually carry it with you - but that defeats the purpose of having a mobile phone. Your internet service provider knows a lot about you. etc... etc... And thanks to things like the Evercookie (which we can assume most of the major advertising networks already had in place before the actual Evercookie was publicized), dozens of web companies know a lot about you. If you use hosted email, that company knows a lot about you.
In all of those cases a skilled hacker, an unethical employee, or a corrupt goverment agent can get an unsettling amount of information about you. Avoiding it is difficult but plausible for educated, upper middle class or wealthier people - don't use a membership service for your pharmacy and grocery store. Don't have credit cards. Pay cash for your shopping. Use multiple banks, and do most of your transactions using prepaid credit cards and money orders. Switch phone numbers and wireless carriers frequently, or forego a mobile phone entirely. Set up all of your internet devices to use TOR or a VPN service. Host your own email, and only communicate using encrypted messages with other people that likewise host their own email and communicate only via encrypted messages. Avoid all social networks. All of that is a lot of work, and not practical for most of the population - it's so uncommon I wouldn't be surprised if you end up on a government watch list simply for conspicuously protecting your own privacy.
That said, legislating the problem away is simply unworkable. I don't know what the practical broad solution for privacy is, but simply passing a law demanding that Google, Facebook, Comcast, T-Mobile, Costco, Mastercard, etc... abandon large aspects of their business model is a nice fantasy but it won't fly.
Yep, you can't be forgotten on the Internet. You might be able to prune a bit here and there, you can become less of a slut, wear less revealing clothes, get your system clean, etc. At the end of the day though, some trace of information will always remain. If you think you can be totally forgotten on the Internet, I have a "born-again virgin" pill to sell you.
In general, you can't undo the past absolutely. Apologize, repair, remediate? Sure. Un-do? Nope. Sorry.
Gay marriage, yipee. Drones, yes-sir. Protect kids from youthful indiscretions, unachievable.
Put a watermark in a picture. Link it to signatures. All minors should be able to Takedown any non-parental image of themselves.
Perhaps I could make a trolling app for that...
Help eliminate stupid speeding tickets.
Assembling dossiers on literally everyone is just asking for it to be abused by governments and criminal organizations.
But seriously... it can't be overstated.
Ideally... don't do stupid shit that you are going to regret later in the first place
But failing that, because hey.... we all do things that thought might have been a good idea at the time, and only realized in hindsight that it wasn't particularly as good as one had originally thought, then at least be mature enough to face the consequences of your choices... and that means even if those consequences follow you for the rest of your life. Expecting societty or other people to forget or forgive your past might very well be a nice theoretical ideal, but the truth of the matter is that we live in a far from ideal world. It's not that I particularly condone an unforgiving society, but in the end, only *YOU* can be accountable for what you may have done in your past... including stuff that might not put you in the best light It's not anyone's problem to forget but your own.
The question is not so much what are you going to do to make people forget about the stupid things you might have done in the past as much as it is what are you going to do with the rest of your life in spite of it?
Because really, if you can't do that, and learn how to move past it, then how in the hell do you expect anyone else to?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
> "I believe the right to be forgotten is an overstatement," said Hustinx."
It's also philosophically questionable. Other people have a right to remember you and blab about you, theanks to freedom of speech.
It is correct to focus rather on procedures to force addressing of inaccuracies. If the data is accurate, oh well.
Eh, wait until AI analyzes posts.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
An interesting side effect is a more forgiving society. The earliest examples of these types of "look what I saw X doing on facebook" revelations came across as much more scandalous in the media. Now it's ho-hum. Maybe it's just old news. But maybe we're coming to realize that everyone does some dumb stuff from time to time, and we need to deal with that fact proportionally rather than be shocked at any old thing. There's an old saying about the remedy for bad speech being more speech. Maybe we're seeing something similar.
It defy anyone to link me to anyone openly ALL info registered on any site is bogus on purpose and will always be that way i use disposable email addresses that have bogus names and addresses any cookies set by websites are deleted the instant i disconnect if i allow them at all in the first place this site is BTW one of the worst offenders for setting hidden cookies or so they think ..
posted anon and remaing anon ..
Ideally... don't do stupid shit that you are going to regret later in the first place
What you think is stupid is not necessarily what someone else thinks is stupid; it's a personal opinion and nothing more than that. Something completely innocuous to you could be considered extremely offensive by someone else, and that someone else could be a potential employer.
I'm not even talking about any right to be forgotten, just that not doing "stupid shit" isn't necessarily going to help you.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
"Right to defy gravity"
I got arrested on a completely false charge a few years ago. The charge was dropped, and supposedly its not on my record, but the records were available electronically so it still shows up when an employer does a background check.
Any random person can accuse anyone of anything, without evidence, and it costs their target thousands of dollars to defend themselves and permanently blemishes their record. (Generally speaking, police don't really investigate like on TV, they consider it up to the court to determine innocence or guilt.) The county I was in also kept 10% of my bail money as a processing fee. (Yes I mean the county did that, not a bail bond provider.)
Presumption of innocence is a fiction except where the costs of conviction are higher than the costs of defense, which very often isn't the case. And now getting your record cleared doesn't do as much as it once did either.
Check out this ep, it outlines exactly what you say.
Well, presumably, "not doing stupid shit" entails avoiding doing things that have some reasonable chance of costing you any desirable opportunities in the future... whether or not you necessarily personally think that those things are unwise or not.
But ultimately, nobody can be perfectly prescient, or make perfect choices all of the time, and it's a exercise in futility to try. If some future possible employer gets offended at what they find out about you after googling your name, that's unfortunate, but that's also life. Sure, we'd all like it if other people could just forgive and forget any of the past crap that we've done, but nobody else actually *owes* us that. The question, as I said, is not what needs to happen so that other people don't remember, or can't be reminded of what you did, as much as it is what you are planning to do with the rest of your life in spite of that having happened... instead of trying to pretend that you shouldn't have to face up to some unforeseen consequences that might arise from your past choices or actions just because they may be unpleasant.
In the end, assuming you are adult, you are ultimately accountable for yourself. Nobody else is. Make the most of the life you have now, because it's a one-shot deal, and the more time in it that you spend wallowing in regret or wishing that other people wouldn't judge you, the less time is going to be left over for you to really *feel* alive.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Of course when this is about free market and destroying states as economic actors, there is no problem with member states different sensibilities, democracy can be trumped for the good cause. When we come about protecting citizens against megacorporation, it seems to be different.
Ideally... don't do stupid shit that you are going to regret later in the first place
What you think is stupid is not necessarily what someone else thinks is stupid; it's a personal opinion and nothing more than that. Something completely innocuous to you could be considered extremely offensive by someone else, and that someone else could be a potential employer.
I'm not even talking about any right to be forgotten, just that not doing "stupid shit" isn't necessarily going to help you.
What do you propose as a solution? Ban retention of data? Require ACLs that exclude employers?
I got paid for some work that was done through a service using handle names, not illegal but prefer not to give real names for personal reasons.
PayPal tells me the real name of the payer in the email.
I am guessing that they similarly out you to the payer too.
Also it seems that even if you use a gmail account to do this, having cookies tracking you means it is trivial for google to get your real identity and supply it to whomever they wish. It is unclear whether there is any law requiring them to preserve your privacy. I'm not talking about criminal use, I'm talking about preserving civil society and the ability to be private in your papers and activities.
My guess is with the super cookies and all flying around the web all the advertisers and top sites and their owners can easily find out who you are if they want to. There's just so much data.
I'd like to see a chrome extension that automatically provides multiple randomized identities that separate you among all these services.
I don't know how MI5 managed it but somehow the Data Protection Commissioner (now the Information Commissioner) was somewhat ambivalent about Stasi-like surveillance. The latter bit was told to me by Phil Booth, ex-national co-ordinator of NO2ID.
What is actually the problem here? I think the real problem is that one's data can be found, not that it exists somewhere. And the way to solve THAT problem is to implement a "search to kill" mechanism: a way to delete any data marked for killing when it is found. And if the holder of the data doesn't conform, the name and other data will be reported to the person whose data it is. I don't think that sounds difficult.
What do you do when a database is wrong? Especially a secret one you don't know exists until your life is ruined? How do you know who is compiling a database with your information in it? Do you have a right to clear false positives? How do you make it stick the way companies scrape databases and create new ones? Bad information is what alarms me. How do you clear your name when your life is ruined by bad information in a corporate database?
I didn't propose a solution; I merely wanted to make it clear that one person's idea of what is "stupid" is not necessarily the same as another person's.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!