Note: I'm not any type of lawyer.  I'm not an intellectual property lawyer. I'm 
not an EU law lawyer. 

I'm just a (former?) designer who has to be informed about intellectual 
property issues and read a lot of information on the GDPR from other websites 
and lawyers.  And I may misunderstand any or all of it.  But I'm trying to help 
my clients (some on PmWiki, thankfully most US and only dealing with local 
customers) understand this stuff, and deal with my own business information and 
needs at the same time.


Not everyone using PmWiki needs be concerned about the GDPR, but many of us do. 
 I run a life coaching website with a PmWiki website, a large mental health 
resource, and a private consulting business — in the States.  But my clients 
disclose a great deal of personal identifying information that could be 
stigmatizing/grounds for discrimination to me.  From as simple as gender or 
gender-identity issues and sexual orientation to mental health diagnosis and 
physical health information.  Or if I'm editing or formatting a book manuscript 
from someone in the EU — that counts.

> On Jun 27, 2018, at 10:10 AM, Petko Yotov <5...@5ko.fr> wrote:
> 
> On 22/06/2018 00:40, Criss Ittermann wrote:
>> What I see as material problems are:
>> Removing people from Diffs — mentioned in a thread on the PmWiki Users
>> list — if they request their data to be completely removed from the
>> site.  That can be tricky — there's a difference between being an
>> author (of an original article or section thereof, thus possessing
>> copyright to the creation) vs. editor.  Removing a diff in the middle
>> of a chain of diffs can materially change a wiki page in ways that
>> don't work.  If someone fixed a typo, it's now a typo again — and that
>> would be OK I suppose.  But if someone added a paragraph that was
>> later edited & added-to — now the context for further changes is
>> missing.
> 
> You don't need to remove their edits (the diffs), their edits are not 
> personal information. Personal information in page  history are only their 
> name and IP address.
> 
> We need to write a recipe that takes an author identifier (username or 
> e-mail) and possibly an IP address (although some IP addresses may forward 
> thousands of users), then reads all pages with full history and pseudonymizes 
> or anonymizes these bits: just rewrites the "author" and "host" page 
> attributes with some string like user20180627T1322.
> 
> As long as it is impossible to guess or recover the personal information from 
> the files on your server by other users, or in case of a breach, it may be 
> enough.

The GDPR appears to require people be able to be "Disappeared" and if their 
contributions are their copyrighted information, then their contributions need 
to be removed.  https://thegdprguy.com/right-to-erasure/

From what I understand they also need to be able to have a download of all 
their contributions.  They can back up their contributions or all their 
contributed copyrighted work — or both download/back-up and have it all deleted.

So, for example: I have a large PmWiki website (kinhost.org) in which people 
may have shared personal information on a live wiki page.  They may have 
disclosed their sexual orientation, different names they go by online, etc.

The contributions itself, signed with their name or Internet handle, are 
personal identifying information and disclosures, and they have the right to 
erase their contributions.

Yes, they volunteered the information just like one volunteers a Facebook post 
or Tweet.  That doesn't block their right to have it backed up &/or removed 
entirely.

And if I want to be erased, I have the right to have all of my information 
removed from the website — perhaps because it may affect future employability.  
Like if I felt someone might hold my contributions to PmWiki against me (yes, 
I'm making something up), I have the right to have all my information on the 
PmWiki.org site removed.  One could argue whether that would include my 
plug-ins and the documentation thereof.  Is it still my copyright?  Is my name 
in the document?  It's a rough consideration — but it's something required to 
think about especially with PmWiki having authors from around the world.

It's the nature of my wiki (being a mental health resource) that these 
disclosures are more likely, and much more likely to be stigmatizing or the 
basis for discrimination — but the fact that this type of info is still in a 
Diff would be a problem.

>> Making sure all email & comment forms have a required checkbox (not
>> checked already) asking permission to share/email/store personally
>> identifying information.  Though that's pretty easy if you know how to
>> use PmForm.
> 
> 
> If you use "explicit consent" as sole legal basis for collection and 
> processing of personal information you need to explain each and every 
> different purpose for this collection and processing, with individual 
> checkboxes, where people may select some or all checkboxes.

Yes.

In most cases, it would simply be for email storage (unless I was specifically 
tracking people in a CRM or putting them on a newsletter email list etc.).  And 
someone could request I go into my email and delete their emails from my 
personal files or my IMAP or wherever it's stored.

The basic PmWiki contact email should have an example of this.  I know I wrote 
the honeypot recipe for Pmform for example.... so I will have to (both for my 
own sites' sake and for PmWiki in general) see about contributing a fix for 
this issue.  It's the need to track/log permissions that's a real thorn.

Actually, in the case of emails, it could be tracked in the email that comes to 
the addressee really. They're the one storing the email anyhow....  so the 
wording of the consent and what's checked.

The checkbox being a required field stops the email from being sent without 
consent, so it's a self-limiting issue in the first place.  At least that's how 
I set up a Mailchimp form — 1 checkbox, and it's required.  Without explicit 
consent, the email form doesn't work.

> Note that besides "explicit consent" there are 6 other cases for legal basis 
> for this -- if you are in at least one of these cases, you don't require 
> explicit consent.

As a not-a-lawyer, I can't defend these 6 cases as easily as I can write a 
disclosure/privacy policy that explains why I have someone's information, how 
it will be used, and where it's kept/security info.  I don't think I fall under 
these cases except perhaps IP address info on my server, but it's easier for me 
to tell people the web logs have their IP address and it's on a rotation to be 
deleted automatically than it is for me to figure out if I'm an exception to 
the privacy policy rules or defend an exception in court.

I've already figured out that in several cases I'm NOT an exception to their 
under-the-radar under 250 employee rules. I don't need to hire someone to be my 
GDPR expert, but I do need to follow just about everything else.  Both for my 
life coaching business AND for my consulting business because it handles 
business information & other people's copyrighted materials or trade secrets.  
And my community resource site also — it's about mental health info. Bingo. 
Hits the mark for the GDPR.

> One of these cases is "legitimate interest of your company or a third party" 
> (for example usage statistics, software troubleshooting), another one is 
> "legal obligations" (for example it is required by law to store the server 
> access logs for 2 years, and they contain the IP address which is considered 
> personal information by the GDPR), and yet another one is "fulfill 
> contractual obligations with person", and "perform tasks at person's request" 
> (for example they request the creation of an account, or request 
> notifications, or request password recovery).

I believe the safest thing to do would be to explain that these are your 
reasons for having their information in a privacy policy, rather than assume 
that one can let it ride because one is covered with legit reasons.

> That means, if you have some "terms of use" which may be considered a 
> contract, one single checkbox may be enough.

A flag with a link to the policy, an "Accept" button and a log of who has 
accepted with a server timestamp.... "Who" may be IP address, or Author name if 
entered.  But it must be explicitly collected, making this tricky. It can't 
just be stored in their cookie.

Mailchimp is now saving an electronic "copy" of a person clicking that they 
want to receive "email" from you.  If you have several checkboxes for GDPR 
acceptance, it tracks how many one has checked.

Record keeping is part of the GDPR....

It can be a text log I would imagine, or it could be stored in SiteAdmin on the 
PmWiki back-end.  But the text of the form/notification agreed to probably 
should be tracked along with the checkbox checked and time & some way to 
identify "who" like IP/Author.

I wish it weren't complicated — but it is. And it's necessary.

> At any rate, you need a simple, plain text summary of your use of personal 
> information.
> 
>> Getting explicit permissions before setting ANY cookies (not "if you
>> use this site you agree to cookies....") which should be in a pop-up
>> with a checkbox, and the permission has to be tracked though I have no
>> idea how you'd trace it (just on IP?).
> 
> For a PmWiki cookie, only a session ID, and probably the "Author" cookie are 
> considered personal information, you can send other cookies without the need 
> for consent.

It's still a cookie, and from what I can tell you're not allowed to set cookies 
without express consent.  So the cookie can't be set until they agree to accept 
it.  Even if it's "only" a session ID.

> If you have a legitimate interest (usage information, editor accountability, 
> security, troubleshooting), you don't need explicit consent.

Where does it say this?  Everything I've read makes it our responsibility to 
get that consent before ALLOWING the cookie to be set.  So for our security on 
both ends we need explicit consent before allowing comments, emails to us, or 
edits/authoring on our wikis.  From people in the EU at least, but as more 
countries decide they like this policy, I expect this to catch on for other 
countries.

(Especially when they see the type of money the EU makes on compliance.)

> BTW the IP address is also personal information, it is crazy that by law we 
> have to store the server access logs with the IP address, and people need to 
> consent before. This is a Catch 22 abomination, when someone opens the site, 
> the server immediately stores the log entry, and if they do not consent the 
> server stores another log entry.

Yes, the IP address is personal identifying information.  It says so directly 
in the GDPR.

> I believe the people who wrote the parts about cookies and IP addresses were 
> somewhat ignorant about how the internet works, and they did not get help, 
> which was stupid.

Actually, I think they meant it no matter how difficult it is for admins and 
software authors.  And we can blame it on Big Data, but yes their tracking is 
completely obnoxious, and after retargeting pixels and Google's gmail using 
targeted advertising based on email content — this is 100% necessary for the 
protection of individuals.  So even though it's inconvenient, and even though 
I'm in the US, I actually think they're doing the right thing and it's our 
responsibility to our users and admins to make this more secure and explicit 
for them to be able to use this software.

It may or may not come from ignorance — but it really doesn't matter now that 
it's law.  Fight to change it if you're in the EU, and I'd disagree with you as 
a person who doesn't like their kids being a bunch of statistics in some 
advertisers' databases — but it's there now.  Hopefully the EU wouldn't come 
after someone as small as me, but they can.  And maybe they will lest they be 
accused of only going after big corps with big bankrolls.

In the meantime, I'm scrambling to cover my butt.


>> And you can't say "using this site constitutes you agree to our
>> privacy policy or terms of service" — you need a material checkbox
>> agreeing to it, with a link, and that checkbox use has to be tracked
>> somehow (just like email form & comment form permission, and just like
>> the cookie-setting issue — everything has to be tracked).
> 
> If the software is written in a way that it refuses to go forward unless the 
> checkbox is checked, wouldn't this be enough?

If it actually doesn't allow use of the site, yes, but implied consent is NOT 
allowed. So if a cookie is set without explicit consent you're in violation.  
And if they continue to use the site without explicit consent, it does NOT 
count as consent, even if you claim it does (according to the GDPR).

Is there a way to disable cookies unless logged in as an author or admin?  That 
would be a quick way to put a stop to at least part of the problem.

Then the PmWiki login could have a GDPR-compliance checkbox.  

As most of my sites are only edited by me, it would help because I'm the only 
one it needs a cookie for — why put a cookie on visitors?  I don't need that. 

I took Google Analytics off my sites (before GDPR stuff) because I don't want 
to be responsible for their handling my traffic and knowing which IPs go to 
which pages of my sites — people are logged in in Gmail and Google or YouTube — 
Google knows exactly who they are and doesn't need to know they have mental 
health issues of any type.  I'm scrambling to remove a call to Google Fonts off 
one of my sites so the fonts are embedded rather than pulled from Google thus 
identifying my web visitors.

This is pretty serious.

>> A neat thing WordPress did is they have plug-ins supply "Suggested
>> wording" for privacy policies to cover that they're in use on the
>> site.  When the user is on the back-end there's help documents for
>> creating a privacy policy, and for example Akismet suggests some
>> wording for your privacy policy.  WordPress overall gives suggested
>> wording (which covers general cookies, and mentions that you have to
>> put your analytics etc. into the document).
> 
> Indeed, you probably need to mention that you outsource analytics to external 
> companies and embed content from other platforms like videos or maps.

Yes.  Done.

> There is a JS program that can be useful, Tarteaucitron ("Lemon pie" in 
> French):
> 
>  https://github.com/AmauriC/tarteaucitron.js
> 
> It can be configured to delay the loading of external resources like 
> analytics and videos until the visitor accepts these individually and 
> explicitly, and the visitor can see and delete individual cookies.

Very nice.  Sexy. lol — wouldn't work for people with JS blocked.... and since 
embedded content isn't always done with JS, it would probably not work for me.  
I'd have to require JS to use this plug-in....which kinda defeats the purpose 
of the good reasons to block JS. :/

Crisses
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