So, I’m kinda new to this Lemmy thingy and the fediverse. I like the fediverse from a technological standpoint. However, I think that, if we gain more and more traction, Lemmy (and by extend the entire fediverse) is a GDPR clusterfuck waiting to happen. With big and expensive repercussions…
Why? Well, according to GDPR, all personal data from EU users must remain in the EU. And personal data goes really far. Even an IP-address is personal data. An e-mail address is personal data. I don’t think there is jurisprudence regarding usernames, so that might be up for discussion.
Since the entire goal of the fediverse is “transporting” all data to all servers inside the ActivityPub/fediverse world, the data of a EU member will be transported all over the place. Resulting in a giant GDPR breach. And I have no idea who will be held responsible… The people hosting an instance? The developers of Lemmy? The developers of ActivityPub?
Large corporations are getting hefty fines for GDPR breaches. And since Lemmy is growing, Lemmy might be “in the spotlights” in the upcoming years.
I don’t like GDPR, and I’m all for the technological setup of the fediverse. However, I definitely can see a “competitor” (that is currently very large but loosing ground quickly) having a clear eye out to eliminate the competition…
What do y’all thing about this?
“don’t like GDPR”? What’s not to like? Best thing that came out of EU regulation in a long time. And as others have noted you seem to be misinformed about what it actually says…
I also can’t wrap my head around “not liking” GDPR
As a relevant example, seems like only citizens covered by GDPR will be able to request Reddit to remove all of their data from Reddit’s servers since comment deleting tools and scripts are being bypassed, with loads of comments and even entire profiles getting restored by Reddit admins
Can you explain where I’m misinformed? I can surely be misinformed about the workings of Lemmy. However, for GDPR you will not “win” it with a simple TOS or something like that.
If even Google can’t make their Workplace to follow rules in such a way that Workplace can be used according to the AVG rules in the Belgian (well, Flemish) schools, I’m pretty sure that just saying “it’s in the TOS” is not enough…
But again, no expert so I hope that I am wrong.
You are missing the point. A TOS can’t fix it. If it can, they would have done so. And for GDPR, there is no difference between schools and genpop. A citizen is a citizen…
And personal data goes really far. Even an IP-address is personal data. An e-mail address is personal data.
Thankfully, Lemmy instances do not transport this kind of information about their users to other instances!
Maybe not IP addresses, but every post and comment you make is your personal data.
Public posts and comments are, well, public (and there’s no expectation from users that their posts and comments would be private, considering the nature of what Lemmy is).
The only way to not transport public posts and comments to the rest of the internet (including but not limited to other Lemmy instances) would be to completely disconnect an instance from the internet 😅
GDPR does not distinguish between public or private data.
GDPR handles public data through propagation. If you download public data that is GDPR covered, the data you downloaded also becomes GDPR covered. You are required to follow all GDPR regulations while handling the downloaded data.
Remember, GDPR covers almost all “collected personal data”. It does not matter if the data was originally public, and how/where the data was collected. It’s all covered.
However, Lemmy instances may still be exempt from GDPR as they are non-commercial: https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-18/
IANAL as usual.
Posts and comments are not inherently personal data (although they might, of course, contain personal data).
A post of any sane length, though, likely is covered by copyright. Them being public is entirely irrelevant to that in terms of what others are entitled to do with them.
On the other hand, as you say, none of (gestures wildly) this works very well if people start leaning too heavily on that.
You’re confusing “private” with “personal”. My data can be public, but it’s still MY data and I have the right to decide what happens with it and if it should stay public. That’s what the GDPR says and that’s exactly what OP is referring to.
This. Federation doesn’t transfer private data of the user, just their public facing profile and posts. There is no expectation of them being private.
IMO it’s pretty much the same case as email. With email you send data to some remote server which may or may not reside in the EU.
I’m not really sure what argument you can make that fediverse apps but not email break gdpr.
Or even something as simple as putting your email on a public website that may be visited by someone in the US.
You are correct. That’s why email is a big topic in GDPR: https://gdpr.eu/email-encryption/
I’m not an expert in GDPR and will leave the technical side to those who are, but the fact that the EU actively present at the Fediverse with among others the @EU_Commission represented at their official Mastodon instance, I would be surprised if the GDPR was suddenly weaponised against it.
GDPR was written with the intention of empowering users over corporations. The Fediverse has the same goal.
IANAL, but he GDPR is quite reasonable and if Lemmy did the right thing © it would not be a problem I think. Transferring data to a jurisdiction, like for example the US, where people do not enjoy the same level of data protection comes with risks for any eu citizen. Therefore, it is important that any new user of Lemmy/ActivityPub is educated on what’s actually going on here and the consequences of posting on Lemmy for their personal data. Article 49, 1a) of the GDPR provides an exemption for the rule this posting is about if
the data subject has explicitly consented to the proposed transfer, after having been informed of the possible risks of such transfers for the data subject due to the absence of an adequacy decision and appropriate safeguards
Why can’t we have that? Add a step to the signup process that explains the basics of how a decentralised community works: even if you sign up to a German Lemmy instance, Lemmy is a global community, your data may be transferred to any place in the world and that means that you won’t be able to enjoy the rights and protection you may expect on a German server. Click the “accept the risks” button to continue. Go to this link if you ever change your mind to stop federation of your content and attempt to remove it from any place it has already been federated to.
Even cooler if we can somehow record the jurisdiction of instances and build mechanics that act on that information, e.g. during federation.
all personal data from EU users must remain in the EU
Create your account on a EU server, problem solved.
Lemmy (fediverse in general) doesn’t send account data away, and posts don’t qualify as personal data, when you publish something to the internet, it’s public by definition.
I’m not sure this is true. Like imagine someone posts their address in a Lemmy post - I’m pretty sure that counts as PII and they have the right to request its deletion.
Like imagine someone posts their address in a Lemmy post
As you write it you can also delete it.
It’s still you willingly doing it, not the server spreading your data without your consent, this last case is where GDPR applies.
But it’s a very stupid thing to do, never post your personal data in comments.
GDPR Art 4.(1) ‘personal data’ means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person;
Every post and comment in Lemmy qualifies as personal data because they contain the ideas and opinions of an identifiable natural person (by their user handle). Therefore the Lemmy instances are handling personal data and must comply with the GDPR.
Ideas and opinions are NOT identifiable information, unless you’re so smart to as openly writing your personal data on a public forum (something noone should ever do, it’s even bannable on reddit), your comments and posts do NOT contain and personally identifiable info, only your account does.
Personal data is not identifiable information. Personal data is information about an identifiable person. The identifiable information is your username (“online identifier”)
