Get companies to erase your personal data – automated CCPA deletion requests

by yoaviram • 7 years ago

91 51 7 years ago

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

I’m one of the founders of this service. We created Your Digital Rights because we believe that privacy matters, and that exercising your right to privacy should be easy. Over the past year thousands of people have used the service to send GDPR erasure requests. We’ve just launched support for the CCPA. I’d love to get your feedback and am happy to answer any questions.

maikhoepfel• 7 years ago

The service looks excellent, but the lack of any privacy notice and details about who you are made me close the tab again. Why the secrecy?

wjnc• 7 years ago

I see an About and a Privacy policy. Where do you think those are lacking or could be better?

hnhg6• 7 years ago

What about 'startup/tech' companies like Telegram? I can't bulk delete data in group chats, which to me seems in violation of my GDPR rights. I also have no idea where they are permanently based or how to properly contact them? They are an immensely shady outfit...

Can you help with this case or am I and others just stuck with the mistake of using them?

Tenoke4• 7 years ago

Does telegram even store any accessible data on their servers?

As far as I can tell, their use case, in general, isn't covered by the rights to erasure[1]

1. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

Here is their privacy policy https://telegram.org/privacy, not sure if that helps but it designates a subsidiary company to deal with GDPR requests. The details of that company are: Telegram UK Holdings Ltd (71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, England, WC2H 9JQ.

beckingz• 7 years ago

If you delete your telegram account, your messages in group chats will be attributed to a deleted user.

blackearl3• 7 years ago

I see a few notable companies, and then the option to search. Can you include a full list of Data Brokers available to be easier to browse?

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

Did you see this https://yourdigitalrights.org/data-brokers ?

iandanforth3• 7 years ago

Mailto: Links don't work for me. They just pop open the OSX mail app which I immediately close.

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

You can configure a different default email client. Here are instructions for OSX: http://osxdaily.com/2014/05/06/change-default-mail-app-mac/

rapnie• 7 years ago

Are the service and browser extensions open source?

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

Yes, there's a link to the repo in the about us page.

timd2112• 7 years ago

But if I remove from credit bureaus I can't churn credit cards ;)

VWWHFSfQ• 7 years ago

or rent an apartment. or get a car loan. or a mortgage. or some kinds of jobs

iandanforth3• 7 years ago

Being employed is a useable workaround. I've never had anything other than a blank credit history and that usually just triggers a "Can I see proof you can pay" type question.

patcheudor• 7 years ago

or trace back prior fraud. Criminals are using data deletion requests / demands to cover their fraud so they can continue. I don't think as written, this legislation is going to hold up under the onslaught of criminal abuse.

gearhart• 7 years ago

I don't want to be rude, so please tell me if you do, but do you have a source for that? It sounds quite a lot like a "think of the children" argument and whilst I can see people having made that claim elsewhere, I don't see any actual cases of it being reported.

hnhg6• 7 years ago

I believe that's incorrect under GDPR. There is a legitimate interest to keep records for fraud use, and also they must not delete anything that's required for regulatory compliance. GDPR is very clear on that.

blackearl3• 7 years ago

If I have a PO box in CA can I send CCPA requests for myself or do I need to actually be a resident?

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

You need to be a resident, but I have found that many companies will not check and process your request anyway. Microsoft officially said they will do so: https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/11/microsoft-will-honor-cali...

kyrieeschaton2• 7 years ago

Wait, so if I know someone's name and email address or username I can probably cause arbitrary companies to delete their account?

schlimig2• 7 years ago

Exactly! As a site administrator I've received much abuse from users who have used a "service" such as this. Upon doing my job and legally verifying they own the data, I've frequently been subjected to a torrent of abuse and legal threats - companies such as this foster a belief that you can just enter your details, press go and that's he end of the matter.

Tenoke4• 7 years ago

You have to send the request from an email and if you send it from an unrecognized one they'll probably ignore it, have grounds to do so or will ask you for more information in a follow-up email.

kyrieeschaton2• 7 years ago

"Probably" some hazy business process will intervene is not a reassuring guarantee!

(And those manual processes are expensive and likely to be automated away to some hackable business logic at some point.)

Bartweiss2• 7 years ago

Legally, no.

CCPA guidelines say that for deletion requests via an "authorized agent", companies can require the consumer to verify their identity directly with the business, and require the agent to furnish written permission from the consumer. (Unless the authorized agent holds power of attorney. Good luck sorting that case out.)

Practically? Yep.

The burden of work and evidence for refusing requests is pretty high, and most companies probably won't handle it. Companies under GDPR have consistently agreed to delete or even reveal info without reasonable evidence. They generally aren't allowed to gather new info to verify you, either - they specifically can't require official ID if they don't require it as part of their normal business. Probably a decent number will require you to confirm the request via the email they have on file, but if you did the work to plead "no longer have access to that email" they'd probably delete anyway.

The only good news is that password-based accounts are different, and the standard for verification is meant to scale based on the damage of a positive mistake. So you could cause bulk deletions from an email list to hurt a company, or target a person for massive inconvenience, but you probably couldn't get hit someone's most important accounts like file backups or online bill payments.

A really surreal thing, though, is that opt-out-of-sale requests don't even require verification, and they prohibit businesses from asking you to opt back in for a long time. They can only be refused with a "reasonable and documented" belief that the request is fraudulent. What's more, a deletion request that can't be verified is supposed to be treated as a valid opt-out request!

So for targeting a consumer, maybe. But I absolutely expect we'll see someone target a company by taking a multi-million-record email breach and sending deletion/opt-out requests for all of them.

Tenoke4• 7 years ago

This looks great!

I wish it came with a little blurb on /data-brokers as to what a Company does or how they typically use data.

I know I probably 'want' e.g. Experian to have my data but I'd remove any company that is purely ads based for example.

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

Great idea, would you mind adding it to our wishlist? https://wishlist.yourdigitalrights.org/

schlimig2• 7 years ago

Services like this are disgraceful. You encourage users to GDPR from services via your system, a third party, which then sends the request on. GDPR and data protection require that companies protect user data and so these requests cannot just be processed without verifying the user is who they say they are. Companies cannot communicate with you as you are a third party and so you're just creating an unnecessary step in the chain and fostering the belief in users that using your service is all they have to do. The number of people who have given me abuse as a site administrator because upon receiving an email from you or your competitors, I've had to verify identity, is beyond a joke now!

adrr• 7 years ago

Did you even go to the site? It just creates a form email that you send with your own email program.

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

It's sad that you didn't even bother to try the service, or read the instructions, before posting this comment. All the service does in generate an email which opens up in your local email client. You then send the email on your own. If the company needs any further information they can (and legally have to) reply to your email. We are not a side to this exchange.

_fh5n• 7 years ago

I've sent one request as a test, if it works I'll do it systematically for all data brokers listed here https://yourdigitalrights.org/data-brokers

Since the devs are around this thread: it would be nice to have an option to send requests in bulk.

yoaviram10• 7 years ago

Would you mind voting up this idea on our roadmap? https://wishlist.yourdigitalrights.org/

Havoc3• 7 years ago

Oracle is a data broker? I missed that somehow

paulmd• 7 years ago

If you have an account of some kind with them (cloud services, for example) then I'd imagine they're retaining PII on you (name, billing address, etc).

Havoc3• 7 years ago

Yeah I have cloud services with them. Or had. I dropped it because their stuff is just pure chaos.

Of all the companies that might be collecting my info via some dark sorcery...theyre not on my worry list

mrgreenfur• 7 years ago

https://www.oracle.com/corporate/acquisitions/datalogix/

Havoc3• 7 years ago

Ah right. Acquisition. That makes more sense

javajosh• 7 years ago

FYI if you send an email to Acxiom you'll get an automated response to redo your submission through their web form https://gdpr.eu.acxiom.com/managePreference.

This form is filled with dark patterns, including ones that are outright illegal, I believe. You cannot exclude your phone number under GDPR unless your country code is UK (+44).

MEGMAIL• 7 years ago

Wow -- this seems like such a good thing. I can't believe there hasn't been a big push to have companies do this until now.

whamlastxmas• 7 years ago

Will hacker news take down accounts under CCPA?

Get companies to erase your personal data – automated CCPA deletion requests

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