[Advocacy Advisors] EU Data Protection Reform / "Right to be forgotten" softened

Fri Jan 11 18:28:54 UTC 2013

We already bend over backwards to revision-delete email addresses (not
to mention phone numbers and everything else) often (usually?) without
any consent of or warning of more than a few minutes to those who
insert them. On request we always immediately revision-delete anything
else personally identifiable that anyone asks to have deleted, unless
it's a compromising erotic photograph on Commons.

I read through http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/libe/pr/922/922387/922387en.pdf
and I can't see any reason why we don't already go above and beyond
the proposed regulations as amended. The string "17.2" does not appear
in that document. Where is "the surveillence program deriving from Art
17.2" described?

The only way I can see these regulations impacting the Foundation
projects is that people with identifiable nudes on Commons will
finally have a way to get them deleted.

On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Jan Engelmann
<jan.engelmann at wikimedia.de> wrote:
> No, our concerns weren't paranoid at all. Have you even read the initial
> Draft Poposal? OK, let's shift the scenario from a WP-article about a public
> figure to personal data embedded in user pages or discussion pages. Then any
> erasure based on data protection claims would affect the consistency of the
> whole project. Aren't we worried about authors' retention all the time? Here
> is another reason why. And how do you judge the surveillence program
> deriving from Art 17.2? Do you think a volunteer community which is already
> concerned with maaany copyright and personality rights issues could handle
> that? And please, AGF. J
>
> Am 11.01.2013 18:41 schrieb "Amgine" <amgine at wikimedians.ca>:
>
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>> I am only commenting on the WMF's interests, and of course am not
>> well-enough informed, however it seems to me the entire thrust of the
>> argument for WMF concern seems paranoid and foolish in the extreme.
>>
>>
>> On 11/01/13 03:24 AM, Jan Engelmann wrote:
>> > To put it bluntly: It could even affect charities in San
>> > Francisco.
>>
>> Yes, it *would*, and this is not a bad thing. Privacy laws should be
>> as standardized as reasonably possible as it simplifies their
>> implementation. We don't hear such angst about other standards we
>> attempt to comply with though they are far more burdensome, such as
>> W3C and copyright. As far as I am aware, the WMF is generically
>> supportive of individual privacy on the internet, not afraid of it.
>>
>> > Quite worrysome for the Wikimedia movement was the Commission's
>> > initial proposal for a "right to be forgotten" (Art. 17), a
>> > general guarantee for data subjects to get their personal data
>> > erased, if they didn't give their explicit permission. Lacking a
>> > clear-cut, consensual definition of "personal data", even the birth
>> > date of a Hollywood actress could be handled like that.
>>
>> That is FUD, clear and simple. A public figure's personal data would
>> be handled differently than a private individual's data; that is
>> already true and while we do not know the specifics *we also do not
>> know or understand the specifics of the current 27 different laws
>> governing this data now.*
>>
>>
>> I would personally prefer a more measured coverage of the inevitable
>> legal changes affecting the Foundation's communities.
>>
>> Amgine
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