Processing Personal Data: align, disseminate, destroy - Oh MY

Moving along....since we're so clear on what our personal data actually is (NOT) let's see what companies can actually DO with our personal data.

What Constitutes Data Processing?
GDPR explains it as follows:

ANSWER 

 "Processing covers a wide range of operations performed on personal data, including by manual or automated means. It includes the collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction of personal data"

Adapt

alter

structure

disclose

transmit

disseminate

WOW  
Align, erase or destroy - OH MY!

And just how loooooong is the list of personal data that can be ....processed?

Facebook's  updated Privacy Statement is as good a place as any to start.

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What kinds of information do we collect?

To provide the Facebook Products, we must process information about you. The types of information we collect depend on how you use our Products. You can learn how to access and delete information we collect by visiting the Facebook Settings and Instagram Settings.

Things you and others do and provide.

·       Information and content you provide. We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our Products, including when you sign up for an account, create or share content, and message or communicate with others. This can include information in or about the content you provide (like metadata), such as the location of a photo or the date a file was created. It can also include what you see through features we provide, such as our camera, so we can do things like suggest masks and filters that you might like, or give you tips on using camera formats. Our systems automatically process content and communications you and others provide to analyze context and what's in them for the purposes described below. Learn more about how you can control who can see the things you share.

o   Data with special protections: You can choose to provide information in your Facebook profile fields or Life Events about your religious views, political views, who you are "interested in," or your health. This and other information (such as racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership) could be subject to special protections under the laws of your country.

·       Networks and connections. We collect information about the people, Pages, accounts, hashtags and groups you are connected to and how you interact with them across our Products, such as people you communicate with the most or groups you are part of. We also collect contact information if you choose to upload, sync or import it from a device (such as an address book or call log or SMS log history), which we use for things like helping you and others find people you may know and for the other purposes listed below.

·       Your usage. We collect information about how you use our Products, such as the types of content you view or engage with; the features you use; the actions you take; the people or accounts you interact with; and the time, frequency and duration of your activities. For example, we log when you're using and have last used our Products, and what posts, videos and other content you view on our Products. We also collect information about how you use features like our camera.

·       Information about transactions made on our Products. If you use our Products for purchases or other financial transactions (such as when you make a purchase in a game or make a donation), we collect information about the purchase or transaction. This includes payment information, such as your credit or debit card number and other card information; other account and authentication information; and billing, shipping and contact details.

·       Things others do and information they provide about you. We also receive and analyze content, communications and information that other people provide when they use our Products. This can include information about you, such as when others share or comment on a photo of you, send a message to you, or upload, sync or import your contact information.

Device Information

As described below, we collect information from and about the computers, phones, connected TVs and other web-connected devices you use that integrate with our Products, and we combine this information across different devices you use. For example, we use information collected about your use of our Products on your phone to better personalize the content (including ads) or features you see when you use our Products on another device, such as your laptop or tablet, or to measure whether you took an action in response to an ad we showed you on your phone on a different device.

Information we obtain from these devices includes:

·       Device attributes: information such as the operating system, hardware and software versions, battery level, signal strength, available storage space, browser type, app and file names and types, and plugins.

·       Device operations: information about operations and behaviors performed on the device, such as whether a window is foregrounded or backgrounded, or mouse movements (which can help distinguish humans from bots).

·       Identifiers: unique identifiers, device IDs, and other identifiers, such as from games, apps or accounts you use, and Family Device IDs (or other identifiers unique to Facebook Company Products associated with the same device or account).

·       Device signals: Bluetooth signals, and information about nearby Wi-Fi access points, beacons, and cell towers.

·       Data from device settings: information you allow us to receive through device settings you turn on, such as access to your GPS location, camera or photos.

·       Network and connections: information such as the name of your mobile operator or ISP, language, time zone, mobile phone number, IP address, connection speed and, in some cases, information about other devices that are nearby or on your network, so we can do things like help you stream a video from your phone to your TV.

·       Cookie data: data from cookies stored on your device, including cookie IDs and settings. Learn more about how we use cookies in the Facebook Cookies Policy and Instagram Cookies Policy.

Information from partners.

Advertisers, app developers, and publishers can send us information through Facebook Business Tools they use, including our social plug-ins (such as the Like button), Facebook Login, our APIs and SDKs, or the Facebook pixel. These partners provide information about your activities off Facebook—including information about your device, websites you visit, purchases you make, the ads you see, and how you use their services—whether or not you have a Facebook account or are logged into Facebook. For example, a game developer could use our API to tell us what games you play, or a business could tell us about a purchase you made in its store. We also receive information about your online and offline actions and purchases from third-party data providers who have the rights to provide us with your information.

Partners receive your data when you visit or use their services or through third parties they work with. We require each of these partners to have lawful rights to collect, use and share your data before providing any data to us. Learn more about the types of partners we receive data from.

To learn more about how we use cookies in connection with Facebook Business Tools, review the Facebook Cookies Policy and Instagram Cookies Policy.

 

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New Privacy Policies Love Long Complicated Sentences

In my post from May 31  we looked at how the vocabulary in the first two paragraphs of the GDPR explanation “What is Personal Data” was a painfully tortured linguistic mess because of rarefied vocabulary – identifiable, pseydonymised…

Let’s do a linguistic audit paragraph 3.

Hint – besides the vocabulary (anonymises, anonymisation) the sentence structure is an ideal example of how not to write if you care about being understood.

(from GDPR)

Personal data that has been rendered anonymous in such a way that the individual is not or no longer identifiable is no longer considered personal data. For data to be truly anonymised, the anonymisation must be irreversible.

I’m pretty sure there is an error in the first multipli–embedded, complex sentence above. So let’s fix that before we go on to look at why there is no reason on earth we should expect most readers to understand it - certainly not the 50% of adults in the US reading at 8^th grade and lower.

Personal data that has been rendered anonymous in such a way that the individual is not or [is] no longer identifiable, is no longer considered personal data. For data to be truly anonymised, the anonymisation must be irreversible.

Truth about complex sentences

• The longer the distance between your initial noun phrase and your verb phrase the tougher the read.

Here's an example (mine):

The boy who was chasing the dog vigorously in pursuit of the neighbor’s cat, that had scampered up the old elm tree without any thought to coming down, to make lunch out of the new nest of sparrows, finally gave up at the corner of Elm Street.

So reader, who gave up - the boy, the dog, the cat...?

Well the boy of course.

The boy who was chasing the dog vigorously in pursuing of the neighbor’s tabby cat, that had scampered up the old elm tree without any thought to coming down with every intent to make lunch of the new nest of sparrows, finally gave up at the corner of Elm Street.

Back to our painfully tortured GDPR sentence. ..

There is so much intervening stuff between the initial noun (personal data) qualifying things , that the reader could misread as...

"Personal data is no longer considered personal data."!!

 Rule for a kinder, gentler sentences

·      To make a sentence more readable move the noun phrase and the verb phrase closer to each other.  In other words -  cut out some of the middleman. (add it to a new sentence).

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Privacy Statements Confusing - Who Are You?

Let’s get back to understanding what our “personal data” is in the new age of  privacy.

Answer
From  (GDPR)

“Personal data is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual. Different pieces of information, which collected together can lead to the identification of a particular person, also constitute personal data.

Personal data that has been de-identified, encrypted or pseudonymised but can be used to re-identify a person remains personal data and falls within the scope of the law.”

 Ebay

“Personal information is information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.  An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by reference to an identifier such as a name, and identification number, location data, an online identifier, or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person."

Facebook

Facebook (I’ll be devoting much more to FB’s new privacy policies soon ) with its clear language and folksy tone, focuses almost entirely on how they “collect” and “use” your information.  Even the word “identity” is shunned by them.  You simply are your data.

Identifiers: unique identifiers, device IDs, and other identifiers, such as from games, apps or accounts you use, and Family Device IDs (or other identifiers unique to Facebook Company Products associated with the same device or account).

[In FB’s Settings you can click down to all the specifics that make up your identity.  It’s a very long list of categories.] Again, more about this later.  

So How Am I Doing So Far?

My identity is me – a living person. I have to be natural.  My personal data is anything that points to me when I’m alive.  This can be my name, ID number, the location I am at and where I am online.  My data tells about my physical body, my genes, my mental state, how much money I make and my culture. This data can be one thing or it can be many things. But if something happens to this data (words I don’t understand - de-identified, encrypted or pseudonymised) someone else can steal and use my identity.  That's the law. 

....please forgive, I'm only a simple linguist making my way in the new world of privacy statements. 

Verizon is now inviting you to give them access to all your data.

Would you take up this offer?  

Who do you think would?