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Comment by nothis | Hacker News Reader

They’re forced to delete the data as well aren’t they? Or is that just in the EU?

I just downloaded all the data that FB has on me. It's quite surprising to see every single message and wall post I have made and others have made to me.

One thing I realized is that even if I delete my account, facebook will still store my communication with other people in case they request to download their information too. So I'm not sure if it would ever get deleted unless both parties delete their accounts? For my info to truly get deleted, all of my contacts would have to delete their accounts too.

In a funny way, this reminds me of the Six Degrees from Bacon game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Degrees_of_Kevin_Bacon

Facebook just made it real using your data.

This is why starlets aren't posting their naughty pictures to Facebook.

I believe their posts will be gone, however I only have facebook memories ('on this day') as fickle proof.

A friend who commented on a lot of my posts deleted his facebook two or three years ago now.

All of his posts are missing which is confusing with other people responding to his opinions or jokes.

>I just downloaded all the data that FB has on me.

Where can one do this?

https://www.facebook.com/settings at the bottom where it says "Download a copy of your Facebook data."

Aha cheers!

Just the EU. If I'm not mistaken, being a US company they are not even forced until GDPR takes effect.

With all the backlash, I really wonder if Facebook will give EU citizens the option to delete their data but not American citizens.

GPRD couldn't come at a worse time for them...

Even though they will have technical and business procedures in place to ensure compliance with the 'right to be forgotten' for EU citizens behind the scenes - and therefore any user globally - I would be very surprised if they offered this outside the EU (unless forced to by the likes of the EFF but I doubt enough people care). It would directly reduce the attraction to advertisers, and impact their bottom line.

In EU, are they not obliged to keep some data? Imagine the case: commit a crime using FB, delete your profile. I cannot imagine the judge/police would not get some exploitable data...

There's some exemptions around law enforcement matters:

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-da...

For example:

"the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences;"

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