[BlueOnyx:21886] Re: EU-DSGVO - anonymize ip addresses in apache logfiles / other logfiles?

[Michael Stauber]

Hi Ken,

> This is an EU requirement?

Yes, it's an EU law. All EU member states ratified it and need to
implement it until (I think) 25th of May 2018 into national law.

> How strange, that an IP address would be considered "personal data".

Indeed!

> In the context of the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica fiasco, worrying about
> IP addresses in webserver logfiles seems so quaint.

Absolutely right. Like I mentioned in my previous message to Dirk:

Even the German govt considers "personal data" of users aggregated
in large companies as "important marketable asset with considerable
competitive advantage".

The "Cambridge Analytics" fiasco of Facebook is nothing but the peak of
hypocrisy.

Facebook doesn't exist because it wants to do something good for the
users. It also never was about selling ads (although they do). The
declared business model is to collect, aggregate, correlate and
extrapolate user data and to *market* that data to anyone willing to pay
the bucks for it. It's even listed in their terms of service.

It's not just "Cambridge Analytics" that has mountains of data they got
from Facebook. Even the US democratic national congress, Hitlary's
campaign team and the Trump campaign had that data, although the Trump
campaign cross referenced that data with the ones they got from the
republican party and decided to rather run with that as it "appeared to
be more complete". We don't want to know how many of the big advertisers
or NGOs or govts chugged cash to Facebook to get a slice of the crown
jewels. But we can guess.

And the *real* kicker is: The EU-DSGVO will *not* stop that. The wording
of the law is particularly vague and immediately goes out of the window
if someone has "justified interests" in retaining the data. How convenient!

The real purpose of this law is to cement the monopoly of the big
players to retain "personal data", while it actively goes after anyone
else who simply has it because it's part of running a server.

Preaching water, drinking wine. The usual EU shit.

> What's next, anonymizing street addresses on postal mail?

Psssst ... not so loud! They might hear that and might go for that
next!!! ;-)

-- 
With best regards

Michael Stauber