Lemmy @lemmy.ml infamousbelgian @lemmy.ml 2y ago

Lemmy (and the fediverse) and GDPR: a clusterfuck waiting to happen?

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?

37 comments

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.
"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.
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.
- 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.
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 😅
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.

It doesn't work like that, think of your instance being a proxy to the fediverse
- But when a lemmy.world user subscribes to a feddit.de community, the entire community will be copied to the lemmy.world server, or am I wrong?
  
  You are indeed wrong. The email and IP addresses and passwords for example don't get copied. I'm not well versed enough about how it works to go into more detail.
- Is it? I read somewhere that data effectively gets "copied" to the different instances? But that might be wrong info :p
  
  You're right. If someone from feddit.de subscribes to a lemmy.world community, the entire content of that community is going to be copied to the feddit.de server and that's the exact issue OP is referring to.

37 comments