I had two NowTV memberships for some reason (on different email addresses) and wanted to remove one completely – including all personal and card details.

So I logged in and, in true sneaky SkyLittleGits style, there actually isn’t an option to remove your membership completely!
You can stop all your subscriptions but you can’t remove yourself from their system despite this being a breach of GDPR.
So a quick look on their community pages shows that this is very difficult/almost impossible and they’ll pass you round various phone numbers none of which seem to do anything.
So I opened a chat and the chap on there seemed fairly helpful and we got to the point where he was supposed to be deleting my account completely when the chat was ended automatically because of “inactivity” even though his last message was only 3 minutes previously.
Further attempts to start a chat failed miserably.

I then started thinking of ways to stop them taking payments on the card they still had and clearly didn’t want to relinquish. I remembered that my Revolut account allows me to have a ‘disposable’ virtual card which is destroyed after a single use.
So I updated my NowTV payment details using the disposable card and within 3 seconds I’d received a notification from Revolut saying that the card had been used once and it had now been destroyed – Perfect!!

All future emails from NowTV to that address are being automatically deleted and the only card details they have are non-existant. I’m calling that a result!

Posted 1 week ago

Your right to get your data deleted

Right to erasure

You’d probably have more luck with Now TV than you would STW when it comes to Right to Erasure.

Posted 1 week ago

Your right to get your data deleted

Yep absolutely – but apparently they make it incredibly difficult.

Posted 1 week ago

Yep absolutely – but apparently they make it incredibly difficult.

Make a complaint

Posted 1 week ago

STW when it comes to Right to Erasure.

I don’t think you can erase your social media presence can you?
In your link there are quite a few exclusions that look like They cover STW?

Posted 1 week ago

When you ask for erasure they should show you a little respect.

Posted 1 week ago

In your link there are quite a few exclusions that look like They cover STW?

I’ve no doubt STW and similar sites /platforms (publishers) have a ‘legit’ reason to say ‘No’. Personally I feel any site / publisher has a moral responsibility to respect an individual’s request to remove all content and data originally created by the individual. On every user user dashboard there should be a ‘Delete Everything’ button.

Posted 1 week ago

They don’t have to do it instantly, you have made a request and they have a maximum of a month to comply.
If you were thinking of making a complaint, it would be better to follow up the “verbal” request in writing, so you have a record of it other than a live chat session that timed out before it was completed.

There are some legal reasons that apply to financial transactions etc that mean companies cant delete data though. In my work we are legally required to store certain personal data for a defined period of time after certain transactions to comply with Industry Regulations, and these overrule GDPR.

Posted 1 week ago

I say it BigJohn, I saw it and i liked it.

the next two poster obviously have no appreciation of a finely crafted one liner.

Posted 1 week ago

:o)

Posted 1 week ago

I say it BigJohn, I saw it and i liked it.

^ this

Posted 1 week ago

I don’t think you can erase your social media presence can you?

Other places like Mumsnet do it regularly. You’ll see a dialogue box explaining that the user requested the message to be removed where their post used to be usually. Facebook do it too, with a battle, as I’ve helped a friend do it under difficult circumstances.

Posted 1 week ago

Well played bigjohn.

Posted 1 week ago

I laughed too @BigJohn

Posted 1 week ago

Erasure is more difficult if you’re dealing with a ship of fools.

Posted 1 week ago

You’d probably have more luck with Now TV than you would STW when it comes to Right to Erasure.

1) You can delete your account yourself, it’s an option in your profile, or you can request it formally if you’re bone idle. STW is fully GDPR compliant here.

I’ve no doubt STW and similar sites /platforms (publishers) have a ‘legit’ reason to say ‘No’. Personally I feel any site / publisher has a moral responsibility to respect an individual’s request to remove all content and data originally created by the individual.

What you feel is an irrelevance, what matters is the law. If you’re going to post something you may later regret, don’t post it. Simples.

On every user user dashboard there should be a ‘Delete Everything’ button.

A forum hosts conversations. Nuking half of every conversation that a user has partaken in, potentially prolifically and for years, would be an act of gross vandalism. It could render most of the forum nonsensical.* If several people did it it could kill the forums completely. That’s never going to happen.

(* – more than it already is.)

Posted 1 week ago

If they made it easy it would enable people to sign up for a free week more than once with the same email. Don’t know if that is a legitimate business reason to keep that bit of your data though. Complain to the ico and find out?

Posted 1 week ago

I don’t think you can erase your social media presence can you?

Other places like Mumsnet do it regularly. You’ll see a dialogue box explaining that the user requested the message to be removed where their post used to be usually.

Removing a message and removing your entire presence are not the same thing.

The moderators can remove individual posts on request, but likely won’t unless it’s against the T&Cs or you can otherwise justify it. Again, there’s good reason for this – if they did then they get accused of censorship, covering up and the like.

As an example: We had multiple emails about that Sick Bikes thread requesting / demanding deletion of posts, they were actioned when it was justified but it was often spurious and thus got ignored. What they never really grasped was that if we had made it all just disappear then it would’ve done them more harm than good and would’ve harmed STW’s reputation. What did get deleted were things like personal attacks and posts exposing personal details not in the public domain (eg, family members). These are against the well documented forum rules, and in the latter case both a potential issue under GDPR / DPA and a thoroughly shitty thing to do.

Posted 1 week ago

If they made it easy it would enable people to sign up for a free week more than once with the same email. Don’t know if that is a legitimate business reason to keep that bit of your data though. Complain to the ico and find out?

Getting another email address isn’t difficult. But yeah, I expect there’s a legitimate business interest in holding “is a former customer” details to prevent abuse of introductory offers.

Posted 1 week ago

Erasure is more difficult if you’re dealing with a ship of fools.

@Sandwich and @BigJohn please Stop!

Posted 1 week ago

GAH beat me to it

Posted 1 week ago

Sorry I haven’t been here to answer for myself: I’ve been completing a paper on wheat – US production.

Posted 1 week ago