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Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

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Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#31

Post by organsnyder »

bombcar wrote: post #20
itvision wrote: post #6

I've worked for several companies and let me tell you the truth: * accounts are never deleted, period * At most there's a column in the table which specifies whether the account is alive or not. That's it.

Confluence even explicitly does this - you can do a “gdpr delete” which disables the user and replaces all info with random strings. It’s kind of hilarious.

As long as all PII is purged in this process (tricky to guarantee with software like Confluence that is entirely dedicated to hosting user-generated data), that could be compliant.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#32

Post by giraffe_lady »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #26
grishka wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the service, it's not always possible, or even desirable, to fully delete an account. For example, if something has an important social part to it, do you also delete the comments that user has left on other people's content? Or their messages in chats? If you do, then discussions end up broken. If you don't, this isn't really a "full deletion". Most social services I've seen do the latter. Some replace…

I’d have to look at what Apple requires, but I think deleting comments is good (maybe replacing them with a slug). That’s considered heresy, though, by today’s “data is money” crowd. I have seen apps that delete an entire thread, when a root comment is deleted; including responses by other people. I think SMF did that. In the case of our app, we leave communication between users to other apps (like Mail and Messages)…

It's also considered heresy by HN, which doesn't remove comments of deleted accounts.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#33

Post by AnonC »

barbazoo wrote: post #29

> 2 services moved my account to a different email address instead of deleting it. I was only able to detect this because they changed the mailbox part (the bit in front of the @ sign) but left the domain unchanged. I capture all incoming emails to my domain, so I saw email-change confirmation emails and other emails arriving at the new unexpected addresses. That's sketchy, especially if you don't own the domain but…

AFAIK, with the default domains owned by the email providers, Gmail and Yahoo don’t recycle unused/deleted gmail/yahoo addresses ever (whereas other paid providers like Fastmail, Posteo, etc., do recycle within a few months or in a year or so). One needs to be wary of address recycling policies while using somebody else’s domain.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#34

Post by Nextgrid »

organsnyder wrote: post #31
bombcar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confluence even explicitly does this - you can do a “gdpr delete” which disables the user and replaces all info with random strings. It’s kind of hilarious.

As long as all PII is purged in this process (tricky to guarantee with software like Confluence that is entirely dedicated to hosting user-generated data), that could be compliant.

Technically the foreign key relationships could themselves be considered identifying data.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#35

Post by Nextgrid »

organsnyder wrote: post #30
itvision wrote: post #6

I've worked for several companies and let me tell you the truth: * accounts are never deleted, period * At most there's a column in the table which specifies whether the account is alive or not. That's it.

That's illegal under the GDPR and many other privacy laws and is subject to heavy fines if caught. I work in privacy at a large tech company, and we take this stuff extremely seriously.

The heavy fines everyone is fear-no getting about are a running joke now.

It took 4 years and a non-profit making lots of noise for a brazen, obvious and malicious GDPR breach to be investigated despite it being plastered on every single website out there (I’m talking about non-compliant consent popups).

To date, the accumulated fine amount over the 4 years and all fined companies is around a billion. Now lookup the profit that just one top adtech vendor makes in a year.

The spirit of the GDPR is great but its enforcement is severely lacking.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#36

Post by warmwaffles »

organsnyder wrote: post #31
bombcar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confluence even explicitly does this - you can do a “gdpr delete” which disables the user and replaces all info with random strings. It’s kind of hilarious.

As long as all PII is purged in this process (tricky to guarantee with software like Confluence that is entirely dedicated to hosting user-generated data), that could be compliant.

I wonder if they also go through all of their backups and purge the PII. I would be willing to bet, they don't.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#37

Post by Nextgrid »

barbazoo wrote: post #29

> 2 services moved my account to a different email address instead of deleting it. I was only able to detect this because they changed the mailbox part (the bit in front of the @ sign) but left the domain unchanged. I capture all incoming emails to my domain, so I saw email-change confirmation emails and other emails arriving at the new unexpected addresses. That's sketchy, especially if you don't own the domain but…

I had the same experience with a UK fintech.

Re: Some discouraging anecdotes on how services handle account deletions

#38

Post by Nextgrid »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #22

The app I'm writing does this very well. That's because Apple requires it. They won't approve my app, unless there's a "full-fat delete" option. If a user of the app deletes, it completely nukes their entire account, down to the last byte.

Does Apple have any way to verify it’s actually a full delete, and do they do so?

There is public evidence that a lot of apps lie on their privacy labels and they seem to get away with it.

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