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Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

takeout.google.com

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Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have to go to the specific Google service that stores the item you want to delete. You can delete emails in Gmail, photos in Google Photos, etc.

This is the wrong answer. Right answer: You can go to [1] and [2] and [3] and ask them to delete your information. It's important to retain a copy in writing that they have removed your information. If a copy is ever found online (in a data breach or otherwise) you would be able to enact legal rights as a result of their GDPR breach. I would encourage people who upload data to leave "fingerprints" in their accounts,…

RE [2]: You mean "About which Google product" -> "Other", "What personal data are you seeking?" -> "technical log information" ?

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#13
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Unfortunately GDPR failed to realize that most data companies hold about us is inferred. Data takeouts usually provide you with all data you willingly provided (uploads, reviews, likes, playlists, etc). But most interesting information is missing. How often did I watch each video? When did I open each e-mail? There's so much data that companies collect about your behaviour that is never given back to us.

It's entirely possible to collect information to identify a unique human without it being considered PII - combine it all together and maybe add a sprinkle here and there (perhaps public domain info, buying "anonymized" info) and boom, you know who it is. Yet, if you're audited, it's just a series of IDs and numbers, nothing identifying there...Right? If you ask Spotify for your data dump, you'll notice in a lot of t…

AFAIK the GDPR already does this:

See first definition of https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

You are identifiable by combining multiple factors, even if every individual factor is not enough to be identifiable.

If I understand it correctly, the EU 'personal data' (PD) concept is much wider than the US 'Personally Identifiable Information' (PII) concept. You are touching one of the differences here.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#14
It's really hard to download from takeout.google.com these days. I have 86 gb data on my google account and is trying really hard to export.

- the export size is around 176 gb. Mostly photos.

- it has the option to move to one drive or box. But 100 gb on Google will be 200 gb on one drive. Images are copied into multiple folders to recreate the albums. Note that google photos automatically create albums for family and trips.

- tried to use 2gb zip to split the files. We have to click and download 100+ pieces of zip files. Even if one file is corrupt we are done. All this shows in a modal window. We can't download more than 5-8 files at a time.

- split it into 5gb zip files. Now download numbers are manageable, but the network keeps dropping and we have to download again. We can only retry 3 times making the entire set useless.

- no options to separate videos and photos.

- we only have a week to takeout and test the whole thing.

TLDR; it's designed to make sure that we don't actually take out the files...

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#16

It's really hard to download from takeout.google.com these days. I have 86 gb data on my google account and is trying really hard to export. - the export size is around 176 gb. Mostly photos. - it has the option to move to one drive or box. But 100 gb on Google will be 200 gb on one drive. Images are copied into multiple folders to recreate the albums. Note that google photos automatically create albums for family an…

You can takeout each service seperately...

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#17
post #2

Once the export is done and I see something I don't want to exist anymore, where do I request that data be permanently removed (GDPR style)? Asking as I honestly don't know.

https://yourdigitalrights.org/d/google.com

This service will generate an email with a general deletion request. Modify it to ask for the specific information you want deleted.

Disclaimer: I'm the creator of this service.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entirely possible to collect information to identify a unique human without it being considered PII - combine it all together and maybe add a sprinkle here and there (perhaps public domain info, buying "anonymized" info) and boom, you know who it is. Yet, if you're audited, it's just a series of IDs and numbers, nothing identifying there...Right? If you ask Spotify for your data dump, you'll notice in a lot of t…

AFAIK the GDPR already does this: See first definition of https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... You are identifiable by combining multiple factors, even if every individual factor is not enough to be identifiable. If I understand it correctly, the EU 'personal data' (PD) concept is much wider than the US 'Personally Identifiable Information' (PII) concept. You are touching one of the differe…

This is correct.

For GDPR purposes, data is PII if it can be used in combination with any other data to identify an individual. Doesn’t matter if the individual data points are not themselves identifying.

One thing I’ve been curious about is whether AI and algorithms that can potentially take a huge amount of anonymous data and “identify” a user (but not explicitly), only identify in the sense that the output of the AI was only possible by correlating individuals granularity enough. I’m almost certain the answer is yes. I’m not clear on whether GDPR addresses that issue or not.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#19
Another fun one. Go into Facebook and download your data and look in the ads folder. There's a very helpful "advertisers_who_uploaded_a_contact_list_with_your_information.html" page that lists every advertiser who somehow obtained your contact data and ran targeted ads to you. There's a lot of sketchy companies out there who I never had any kind of relationship with who somehow managed to obtain email or other contact data. Bit of an enlightening experience as to just how widespread your personal data is being shared, even if you're somewhat careful of who you give your personal data to.

Re: Google Takeout: Export a copy of your data in Google services

#20
I periodically use the takeout service and selectively copy to the 1TB of storage I have on OneDrive (which comes with an Office 365 subscription). Having my digital stuff backed up on two cloud providers is enough for my capacity for risk. I used to make a 3rd backup in Dropbox but don’t do that anymore.
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