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PSA: You can't delete photos uploaded to Lemmy. So don't (accidentally) upload a nude
(tech.michaelaltfield.net)
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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How exactly does Lemmy remain in compliance with laws regarding, for example, a user's right to have all data associated with their account deleted (right to erasure, etc), or ensure that it is only kept for a time period reasonable while the user is actively using your services (data protection retention periods, etc)?
It's not a big deal for me, just strange to think Lemmy of all places would be built to be so anti user's data rights. The user is ultimately the one that decides what is done with their information/property, after all.
Lemmy is not a singular software or website, every instance on its own need to ensure compliance with their respective laws where they are domiciled.
But if instance A is domiciled in the EU, and the content mirrored to instance B in Zimbabwe, where no right to be forgotten exists, then a user of instance A can't invoke any laws beyond what the local admin can control.
That's amazing for high availability of content - it's essentially mirrored in perpetuity - but a nightmare for privacy advocates. AFAIK there haven't been any court cases related to deletion requests, so that's still virgin territory.
Instances located in Zimbabwe still have to comply with the GDPR, as the law applies to any entity that processes EU citizen's personal data, regardless of where this happens. Instance B would also have to comply with a deletion request, or whatever EU member state the citizen is from will impose a fine and seize assets if necessary.
This is the stupidest claim GDPR makes. It's completely unenforceable and it's attempting to enforce EU law in countries outside of the EU, which goes completely against any norms in international relations.
It absolutely is enforceable, and the EU has already enforced it several times.
The EU can of course try to seize assets, but in many cases they have signed a treaty with other countries stating they have the right to enforce the GDPR within their borders. Think a bit in the sense of an extradition treaty. For the US, this is the EU-US Data Privacy Framework for example.
This means the EU absolutely can, will and has the means to enforce the GDPR abroad.
I don’t see how it could be enforced without this. If you are operating internationally, comply or block your service from regions you cannot legally operate in.
Personally I don’t think Lemmy should comply. It’s an ad free community service with zero PII obligation besides an email and whatever IP you choose to connect from. No one has to be on Lemmy for any common social obligations.
If you want to be forgotten then leave!
Couple of problems with this. First, it's putting the onus on a company that does not operate in Europe to figure out what European law is and to try to comply with it. Why should they have to do that? If you're not operating in an area, you should not have to ever give any consideration whatsoever to the laws of that area.
The second is that, unless I'm misinformed, the EU claims its law applies to any EU citizen, regardless of location. Which means if a Dutch person moves to Australia and uses Australian companies' services, the EU says "hey, Australian company, you gotta do what this Dutch person says with their data". Which is utterly ridiculous.
GDPR does not depend on business size, there are just a few stricter requirements when you have more than 250 employees. But most of the GDPR still applies to my knowledge.
Uhuh, suuureeeee. Tell that to any number of fines that has yearly been issued by my country's GDPR oversight agency on ordinary citizens.
GDPR only applies when people file reports and when there are lawsuits. There's literally no shortage of articles of people fined for GDPR violations, all people need to do is search for them.
When someone files the inevitable court case, please let me know. I have some admin behavior bullshit I will be willing to personally get in contact with the lawyers about that I think could help it.
You confuse things. Just read: https://www.compliancejunction.com/gdpr-guideline-for-companies-with-less-than-250-employees/
Not sure how you think individual people can get fined under the GDPR but companies with less than 250 employees can't. This is just about the only exemption:
.... At this point, you realize you are just grasping at straws, right? And ones you are seriously misunderstanding, given your previous less than 250 employees statement.
It's not much, but I would advice you to read the second answer here, https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/29052/do-web-applications-as-hobby-projects-need-to-comply-with-the-gdpr , and seriously think about whether a site with many more users and much more personal data, specially those receiving revenue streams in the form of donations and with a team made up of more than one person https://team.lemmy.world/ , would be more or less likely to be accountable to the GDPR under a court of law than a personal blog.
Ruud should probably be getting in contact with https://autoriteitpersoonsgegevens.nl/contact/informatie-en-meldpunt-privacy-imp or on the telephone Monday to Thursday from 10 a.m. to 12 noon on 088-1805250 if he hasn't already.
Doesn't matter. Lemmy instances are technically "entities" so the law applies to them. You don't have to be a business, just "anything that processes EU citizen's personal data".
Actually I believe it's "residents". You don't need to be a citizen.
It's both indeed, citizens as well as residents.
GDPR applies regardless of any "business". It applies to any entity processing personal data.
Which is incredibly broad by the way. IP addresses and email addresses are personal data too. Same goes for "account data" in a broad sense. So Lemmy does collect personal data, and has to be compliant with the GDPR.
Of course, for a fine there needs to be an investigation and the entity has to not comply with GDPR requests after a warning. And you're absolutely right that devs can't be sued for this, but the sysadmin running the instance can be. But that would only happen after GDPR noncompliance.
Because Federation is a terrible idea
But think of Reddit, they can delete a post but a bunch of archived websites will still have it. That doesn’t make Reddit non-compliant
Why is federation bad? It's the only way to decentralize without having everyone scattered across millions of sites.
The days prior to 2014 are gone and for the most part, the overwhelming majority of people don't want to register across dozens of sites. Everyone naturally gravitates toward massive content silos where they can get everything in one place.
It's not bad in principle, but so far there hasn't been an implementation that fully addresses all relevant issues.
For the health of the internet you want people scattered across millions of websites
And the need for regulations that limit active users isn’t a reason to contribute further to the problem
Preventing congregation weakens the effectiveness of disinformation and propaganda campaigns, and protects against bullying
I don't understand this point. Federation brings everyone together. I don't understand why it's bad for everyone to spread out.
This is a contradiction. This is an argument for having everyone decentralized rather then together in massive content silos.
Yes, if everyone is together it is much easier for misinformation to spread
If a Russian content farm was to try and get a message out would it be easier if they made one post seen by millions or thousands of posts seen by a few thousand people
Even Lemmy mods know federation is a bad thing because their answer to preventing the above is defederating