GDPR compliant forum.

[Riley Blue]

I run an on-line forum for my old school hosted by freeforums.net. All has been well for several months but a new member has written (on Facebook) that "it's not GDPR compliant and there is no simple way to prevent it sharing your information from your computer use with anyone it sees fit. Technically worse than facebook or google."

Is he correct and if so, what need I do? He has already posted on the forum so can't be too concerned.

[anonymous-user]

Your forum should give the option to not have their information held, and you should also have a statement along the lines of stating you will only use any personal data held for the purposes of running the forum.

However I'm sure there'll be a legal expert here shortly to give you the official version

[Mr Pointy]

You could always solve his problem by banning him & deleting all data about him.

[krisdelta]

It's very likely the host will have this covered with a privacy policy you either accept or reject or adding in a sticky about data usage. There are examples of forums putting up a "sticky" note to cover the ground too.

http://hhplots.freeforums.net/thread/324/gdpr-gene...

Simply speaking, the legislation is related to mis-use of data vs the specified and consented purpose and fines are based on your annual turnover, which I am guessing as a school forum is "low".

[Riley Blue]

krisdelta said:

It's very likely the host will have this covered with a privacy policy you either accept or reject or adding in a sticky about data usage. There are examples of forums putting up a "sticky" note to cover the ground too.

http://hhplots.freeforums.net/thread/324/gdpr-gene...

Simply speaking, the legislation is related to mis-use of data vs the specified and consented purpose and fines are based on your annual turnover, which I am guessing as a school forum is "low".

There's the ProBoards privacy policy here https://www.proboards.com/privacy that applies and explains what information is collected, how and with whom it is shared and how to opt out. I can't see that anything else is necessary as it's purely a 'comments forum' with no trading of any sort so no financial risks but this chap is rabbiting on about GDPR.

[Order66]

Riley Blue said:

I run an on-line forum for my old school hosted by freeforums.net. All has been well for several months but a new member has written (on Facebook) that "it's not GDPR compliant and there is no simple way to prevent it sharing your information from your computer use with anyone it sees fit. Technically worse than facebook or google."

Is he correct and if so, what need I do? He has already posted on the forum so can't be too concerned.

Are you doing it as a business? GDPR only applies to businesses or "organisations" and not to individuals processing information for personal/household purposes. So basically you can tell him to ram it as you have no obligation to be GDPR compliant.

[krisdelta]

Riley Blue said:

krisdelta said:

It's very likely the host will have this covered with a privacy policy you either accept or reject or adding in a sticky about data usage. There are examples of forums putting up a "sticky" note to cover the ground too.

http://hhplots.freeforums.net/thread/324/gdpr-gene...

Simply speaking, the legislation is related to mis-use of data vs the specified and consented purpose and fines are based on your annual turnover, which I am guessing as a school forum is "low".

There's the ProBoards privacy policy here https://www.proboards.com/privacy that applies and explains what information is collected, how and with whom it is shared and how to opt out. I can't see that anything else is necessary as it's purely a 'comments forum' with no trading of any sort so no financial risks but this chap is rabbiting on about GDPR.

Point him at the proboards privacy statement and if he doesn't feel he is protected sufficiently, he should request his account be deleted.

[tangerine_sedge]

IANAL but....

Point him to the privacy policy and ask him which bits he doesn't like. If he still complains then point out that this was the privacy statement that he signed up to and ask him when he wants his account removed.

[Riley Blue]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

The fact that he's registered for the forum and has posted on it indicates how great he sees the 'threat'. I suspect the real reason is that he's admin of one of the Facebook groups for the same school. I think I'll tell him to 'shove it', politely of course.

[ging84]

By the looks of thing they are operating a fully managed service where they control the data and set the rules, so you are about as responsible for the data privacy on the forum as the other guy is on Facebook. That may not be quite zero responsibility but I suspect it's pretty low.