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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Technology
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I think an option for full data deletion would be nice for those who want it, otherwise people should also expect others recording their data, which can be published later on.
Parts of it may actually be required under EU law. GDPR requires that anyone holding data on EU citizens comply with certain things, including a request to delete certain kinds of data. The EU has shown themselves willing to go after sizeable corporations for violations; most Lemmy instance operators are much smaller. This should probably be addressed before people find themselves on the wrong end of lawsuits.
I don't think GDPR necessarily applies here, but I am not a lawyer. Quoting https://gdpr.eu/companies-outside-of-europe/:
I'm not sure just what the definition of an organization is, so perhaps any server hosted within the EU is covered by the GDPR, but for servers outside of the EU that don't have ads (which seems like all servers currently), I don't think this would count. The example on the linked site about "goods and services" includes stuff like looking for ads tailored at European countries, so I suspect that simply serving traffic from Europe isn't enough.
The website also mentions the GDPR applies to "professional or commercial activity". There's also apparently an exception for under 250 employees. I don't even know how that works when something is entirely managed by volunteers like this currently is.
At any rate, I suspect we're a long way off from having to worry about the GDPR.
The GDPR itself doesn't use the term organisation, it refers to data controllers and data processors.
As someone from within the EU working in data the fediverse is absolutely not a long way off having to consider this, GDPR impacts even the smallest businesses or voluntary groups - it's just how we handle data.
To make it easier to grasp GDPR is about your rights over your data, those don't change depending on who is processing it, nor does the processors obligation, however what would be considered appropriate safeguards would scale with the size and intent of your organisation - it would be silly for my local shop to have a data protection officer.
I suppose the question would become who is the controller, is it the person who provides the software or the person who provides the servers? Typically it's the servers.