Let me share some more thoughts, and
@IgorG please feel free to remove this post, if you believe it is inappropriate at this place.
When I read discussions like this, I feel that most of us are not aware, that the real danger to an Orwell scenario is not at all coming from the billions of websites and thousands of web hosting providers. It is coming from the data protection agencies, because now they have gained an instrument of strict control over Internet businesses and publication platforms, like the fireman of Fahrenheit 451 who lay fires instead of fighting them. My opinion is that we should not so easily accept overly strict new rules on data handling.
DPAs have gained an instrument to prosecute any business and any individual at their own discretion, posing threats and eventually excerpt an enormous pressure on individual behavior that did not exist before. It is already working to perfection. The threat alone that one could be involved in a legal dispute lead to the deactivation of websites in anticipatory obedience, in non-EU businesses locking EU users out, in many U.S. newspapers, including major news sources, now blocking free access to formerly free information … What a fantastic new instrument for dictators to control their people. Simply make a law that makes it illegal to store this or that data and you can ruin people’s lives whenever you like. Al Capone was not prosecuted for murder, but for tax evasion. I see a similar future for John and Jane Doe in a world where data protection rules. We have seen cases here where people start asking others in a phone call whether they are allowed to take notes of what is being discussed. How stupid is this? Privacy regulations start to regulate what we as humans are allowed to think, to speak and most important to remember.This is wrong to do.
The previous poster has doubts that storing personal information for security reasons is allowed? What are the consequences if it was not? It only means that honest people will be subject to repeated fraud attempts, because they are no longer allowed to store the data of others who previously committed a crime against them. Because that would infringe the personal rights for data privacy of the culprits. It is unthinkable that this is what the EU intends by GDPR. It must and it will be possible to store data much longer than a few days, and luckily it is covered in Art. 6 GDPR with a lot of room for interpretation.
Nothing will change to the benefit of website users by anonymizing log files, but a lot will change for all of us as we have lost the freedom to invent and to link data that can be so valuable to discover new fields of business, new applications, new opportunities. And while in the rest of the world businesses continue to prosper and enjoy freedom of information, EU businesses spend billions on GDPR implementation, create tons of paperwork for one single outcome: Being controlled by their governments more intensive than ever before. Individuals are no longer free to store on their servers what they want to store, not longer free to store it how long they want to store it.
Many attempts have been made to gain control over the Internet, and finally, EU has found the perfect instrument: data “protection”. The Internet variant of “protective custody”.
I believe it is ridiculous that billions are sharing personal information on Facebook and personal homepages, not because they must, but because they want to, and at the same time their governments tell them they will not be allowed to do this as they used to, e.g. not allowed to share photos publicly on which others could possibly be identified (something that is now prohibited by GDPR regulations). At the same time we are here to discuss whether it is necessary to anonymize IP addresses in log files that none of us can link to individuals anyway, because we are all missing the executive power that a state agency has. However, the government keeps exactly this permission to store and access such data – the one institution where could really get risky for individuals. What a twisted regulation!
Fine, now we are anonymizing log file data. Just wait on it, wait on it that logging will be prohibited in general and the right to forget supersedes the right to remember.
I can only say that all the exaggerating warnings and fear that the majority is spreading is nothing good for a free society, but will lead into more control, less freedom and specifically a state controlled Internet as other countries already have it. As free users we should not want that, but rather stay free.
Like it or not, sure we all comply with the new rules, but it makes me sad how uncritically people are building their own jails by trying to interpret GDPR in a way that is much more strict than it needs to be.
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