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Comment by guelo | Hacker News Reader

I don't know if (1) is true but the data was collected under previous laws. In my opinion laws like this should not be retroactive. Retroactive laws, especially when affecting billions of dollars of commerce, are unfair and draconian.

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It is not retroactive, the law has been there for 2 years, becoming _active_ in 40 minutes. Secondly, it is not the collection of data, it is the storing of data. So if you store the data without user confirmation in 40 minutes, there might be a problem. The action which is the problem is the storing of private data.

There is nothing retroactive here.

Is three year old data covered? Sounds retroactive to me.

Yes, three year old data was already covered by the DPD.

If you bought designer drugs 10 years ago, the act of buying was legal, even though storing it today no longer is. Same here, collecting it or using it 10 years ago might have been legal. Storing it today is not. You might be confused which action is covered by the law, and that action is "storing". You can decide to stop doing that action today, so it is not retroactive at all.

I don't really see where the age of the data you store comes into play.

The law has been on the books for two years, it just wasn't enforced and for a long time before that there was another law with much the same effect. So even if the data was collected under previous laws there is not much that would convince me that denying the users access to their data or to the legally mandated data life-cycle features is the right thing to do.

In fact that attitude goes exactly against what the law is trying to achieve in the first place.

> In fact that attitude goes exactly against what the law is trying to achieve in the first place.

I think this is an important realization for any regulator.

The law doesn't make it illegal to have collected the data in the past. However, it introduces new rights for people for which you have collected data. I don't think this is unfair

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