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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

Google takes deletes seriously. Extreme efforts go into deleting stuff within 30 days of the user requesting deletion.

Imagine how hard that is when a datacenter is switched off for 14 days for maintenance, and then a fire breaks out and takes it offline for a further 20 days... When something is powered off, it's very hard to do those deletions... Yet misses of the deadline are exceedingly rare, even in cases like the above.

Sometimes disks are crushed in a crusher to meet the deadline if software approaches to deletion can't be done in time.

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Excellent. Thank you for posting this. If anybody I would expect Google to take this serious, they have the eye of Sauron on them continuously and can not afford to trip up.

As does Microsoft. I'm always baffled at these "soft deletes are normal" threads. Maybe at a bootstrapping startup, but most real tech companies implement hard deletes within the first couple years.

> But clicking delete or unsend on a photo is not that.

In Google, a user clicking delete is treated exactly the same as a written deletion request.

In fact, the law requires that they be the same - "Therefore, an individual can make a request for erasure verbally or in writing. It can also be made to any part of your organisation and does not have to be to a specific person or contact point.". (https://ico.org.uk/)

Sorry, but no. That is a deletion request. The GDPR tells you exactly what to do once such a request is made. There is no such thing as a 'specific GDPR deletion request'.

In case of a lawsuit your chances are better if you exactly state that you want a deletion pursuant to Article 17 of GDPR.

Only stating you want your data to be deleted leaves the counterpart wiggle room.

That's true, but regulators operate outside of that and will take the intent rather than the letter of the law to heart, and the GDPR is quite specific in its language.

A person who may decide to bring suit however should always cite chapter and verse to lay down the line and to indicate that they are very serious about it. Just the fact that you would be citing that article will likely give you a better chance of seeing your request honored. But if your request is refused and you decide to tip off a regulator it won't make all that much of a difference, they will do their own investigation outside of the particular case and may broaden/narrow the scope of that investigation as they see fit.

This has already surprised more than one company by the way, they decided to play fast and loose with a single individual and as a result found their whole infra and processes under review with plenty of things found out of order. Fines were handed out that were higher than what it would have cost to arrange things properly in the first place.

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