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Comment by robdachshund | Hacker News Reader

And others would say it is unreasonable for businesses to store user data without consent and with no way to remove it. Please explain why any arbitrary site should have the ability to store user data without consent and then refuse to delete sensitive information. Are you going to accept liability if that data is leaked?

If I walk into a store, can they copy my drivers license and phone number without asking me, and then refuse to wipe my personal data from their systems?

I sincerely fail to see the downside with GDPR unless you think you have some assumed right to personal user information. Why does a site need info from me if I do not even have an account? Why do so many sites now insist that simply by visiting I agree to let them store cookies on my device?

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I can store anything you give me; that you exposed me to it is consent, it's not your data unless you keep it to yourself. When you walk around a public space, you don't get to control who looks at you and logs it. The products of my labor are mine, and that includes whatever I log in public spaces.

Even in the US which is hardly a bastion of consumer privacy that’s not true. If you as a hotel owner stick cameras in every shower you should expect a set of lawsuits, even though that’s your property and the people have knowingly bought a service from you.

A hotel room is not a public space.

Neither is a store or a website, which were the examples used. But we can translate the same example given to public spaces easily: you install a hidden camera in a grating in a public square and take upskirt shots of women walking over. That’s illegal at a federal level in the US so people absolutely have a legal right to control your ability to do that.

Wrong, a store is a public place, they have cameras, more to the point I can take a photo of you in a store and you can't stop me nor do you own it.

> take upskirt shots of women walking over. That’s illegal at a federal level in the US

Only since 2004, and that's a specific exception that was made and only applies when there is a clear expectation of privacy, i.e. wearing clothes to cover your privates is a clear indication you expect that to be private. That doesn't stop anyone from taking pictures of you you don't like though and it only makes the area under your clothes a private space, it doesn't make the public space your in a private place.

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