EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment • Hacker News Board

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#51

Post by secalex » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #39

PeterStuer wrote: post #8

Interesting tidbit: If you try to refer to this article with a link on Facebook, they will block you from posting it.

I also cannot share this on FB. Amazing. The fact that FB is censoring this content deserves its own HN exposure. It is an article about international law with nothing offensive, but FB blocks it.... this is going further than I'd have thought FB would ever do. The future doesn't look so bright for social media.

This was a mistake due to this specific blog post sharing some design elements as some spammy blogspot posts and it was fixed. If we really wanted to censor this story wouldn't we block all criticism of Facebook and not a pretty straightforward and well-reasoned analysis of Safe Harbor? Wouldn't we block the "I declare that I am a wizard and Facebook can't use my content blah blah" memes?

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#52

Post by Nursie » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #49

rmc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then treat personal data as radioactive. Don't store it. Don't collect it if you don't need it. If you have it, try to get rid of it, and delete it ASAP.

That's not practical. "I haven't received my package!" "Well, we sent it 2 weeks ago" "What address did you send it to?" "Don't know" EDIT: Also, "Why does this shopping website require me to re-input the shipping address every time I want to buy something? Why can't it remember it like every website used to?"

In general one is allowed to store data for a limited time for specific purposes. A delivery address, for instance, is vital to deliver a package to.

You could probably even keep a names and addresses database so long as it was something you needed to keep in order to conduct business with the customer.

Routine data mining, asking for irrelevant info, selling it on to third parties, not so much.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#53

Post by Nursie » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 2:36 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #19

I think there's a bit of a rush to panic about data balkanisation here; remember, this is not a ruling that applies directly to Facebook, but to the information commissioner of Ireland. There's no new policy and no court orders to do particular things. What's likely to happen is an extensive legal limbo. We may even end up with a special Snowden version of the cookie warning: "Data stored on this system is subject to…

Icebraining has it right - it's actually struck down Safe Harbour, which means that the US is considered an unsafe destination for personal data until such time as national rulings to the contrary are made, and those rulings could well be subject to challenge at the EU level themselves.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#54

Post by JupiterMoon » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

jstanley wrote: post #49

rmc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then treat personal data as radioactive. Don't store it. Don't collect it if you don't need it. If you have it, try to get rid of it, and delete it ASAP.

That's not practical. "I haven't received my package!" "Well, we sent it 2 weeks ago" "What address did you send it to?" "Don't know" EDIT: Also, "Why does this shopping website require me to re-input the shipping address every time I want to buy something? Why can't it remember it like every website used to?"

Then set up a system to store the shipping address for a couple of months and then purge it from the database.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#55

Post by JupiterMoon » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #33

tajen wrote: post #27

Question: If Facebook manages data within Europe, what are the safeguards in place to ensure that there won't be mass surveillance, e.g. face recognition, shadow profiles, friend graph browsing?

That's use of the data to which you've "consented" by their EULA. "Mass surveillance" specifically refers to warrantless bulk access to that data by security agencies. (Shadow profiles are plainly a violation of data protection law; do they exist for EU users?)

Yes they do.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#56

Post by thibaut_barrere » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 3:01 PM UTC

secalex wrote: post #51

hellofunk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also cannot share this on FB. Amazing. The fact that FB is censoring this content deserves its own HN exposure. It is an article about international law with nothing offensive, but FB blocks it.... this is going further than I'd have thought FB would ever do. The future doesn't look so bright for social media.

This was a mistake due to this specific blog post sharing some design elements as some spammy blogspot posts and it was fixed. If we really wanted to censor this story wouldn't we block all criticism of Facebook and not a pretty straightforward and well-reasoned analysis of Safe Harbor? Wouldn't we block the "I declare that I am a wizard and Facebook can't use my content blah blah" memes?

Thanks for fixing this. I personally did not assume this was necessarily censorship, but don't be surprised by the reaction of users though, I think you'll see more of these reactions for a while, after the Safe Harbor ruling.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#57

Post by rndmind » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 3:07 PM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #47

rndmind wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are surprised facebook is censoring content on a massive scale? Wake up sheeple! Move to a decentralized, open-source platform like diaspora* if that type of thing bothers you, do away with facebook like we dropped myspace

I can understand some degree of censorship like pornography, very explicit violence, etc. But this is just an article about a very public issue. FB has no problems with other divisive issues getting shared, so I'm quite surprised to see this level of blatant censorship on this particular article.

The corporation is owned by the same entities that own the mainstream media outlets, if something goes against their agenda, facebook with outright censor it or prevent others from seeing it.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#58

Post by hellofunk » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 3:15 PM UTC

secalex wrote: post #51

hellofunk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also cannot share this on FB. Amazing. The fact that FB is censoring this content deserves its own HN exposure. It is an article about international law with nothing offensive, but FB blocks it.... this is going further than I'd have thought FB would ever do. The future doesn't look so bright for social media.

This was a mistake due to this specific blog post sharing some design elements as some spammy blogspot posts and it was fixed. If we really wanted to censor this story wouldn't we block all criticism of Facebook and not a pretty straightforward and well-reasoned analysis of Safe Harbor? Wouldn't we block the "I declare that I am a wizard and Facebook can't use my content blah blah" memes?

Interesting... other blog posts by the same author on the same blog were not blocked, just this one particular post. I find it not a coincidence that the post mentioned Facebook quite a bit, and thus it was blocked. I am doubtful this was due to "design elements" without more details.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#59

Post by iofj » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 3:21 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #52

jstanley wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not practical. "I haven't received my package!" "Well, we sent it 2 weeks ago" "What address did you send it to?" "Don't know" EDIT: Also, "Why does this shopping website require me to re-input the shipping address every time I want to buy something? Why can't it remember it like every website used to?"

In general one is allowed to store data for a limited time for specific purposes. A delivery address, for instance, is vital to deliver a package to. You could probably even keep a names and addresses database so long as it was something you needed to keep in order to conduct business with the customer. Routine data mining, asking for irrelevant info, selling it on to third parties, not so much.

Maybe it's just me, but these rules are contradictory. The sentences seem explicitly designed to make that so.

For instance, your email address and birthday, for, say, amazon.com, could easily be argued to "need to be kept in order to conduct business". After all, your email ... amazon spams it ... that's certainly part of the business they conduct (and frankly, they'd be more expensive if they didn't do that, so there's easy arguments that it'd be harder to do business if they didn't). Your birthday ... same. They spam you harder on your birthday ... also part of their business.

Laws like this won't protect anything. The simple fact is you can't have easy to use sites like google, facebook, amazon and the many millions of easy webshops and have protection of private data, it just wouldn't work as well. Since people prove time and time again that they want the webshops and "private" chats far more than they want privacy, there is no way to win this fight. Everything is decided already (and already today kids don't have anywhere near the expectation of privacy that adults have, this will get worse), there's just a few decades of denial remaining.

Take the single account (real name policy) on facebook. We all know that's the reason facebook comments don't work like youtube comments do. That's why not every second post on facebook is about hitler. That's why it's easy to find people on facebook. And so on. You can't drop it and expect the same functionality, and people have proven with their feet (/mouse) that they want the functionality more than they want multi-name policy.

Re: EU data protection law after the Safe Harbour judgment

#60

Post by rawdisk » Wed, Oct 14, 2015, 3:29 PM UTC

secalex wrote: post #51

hellofunk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also cannot share this on FB. Amazing. The fact that FB is censoring this content deserves its own HN exposure. It is an article about international law with nothing offensive, but FB blocks it.... this is going further than I'd have thought FB would ever do. The future doesn't look so bright for social media.

This was a mistake due to this specific blog post sharing some design elements as some spammy blogspot posts and it was fixed. If we really wanted to censor this story wouldn't we block all criticism of Facebook and not a pretty straightforward and well-reasoned analysis of Safe Harbor? Wouldn't we block the "I declare that I am a wizard and Facebook can't use my content blah blah" memes?

"... due to sharing some design elements..."

But someone downthread said the .co.uk version was not blocked (before you unblocked the .com). Are you implying the .co.uk version did not have the same "design elements"?

As to your proposed argument, I think selectively blocking well-reasoned analysis by law professors and letting memes go unblocked makes the most sense for your company.