Jump to content

Privacy concerns when deleting a member


mortenz

Recommended Posts

Where i come from, the current procedure for deleting a member is actually not in agreement with the laws on privacy protection.
After deleting a member the username is still displayed with all his or her posts. That means I have to run a manual SQL query every time I delete a member.

I'm quite sure that this is a problem in other countries as well and I therefore suggest that this is changed for the next upgrade.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The way I see it, there is no option to delete all the members posts.
You will at worst break the communication flow in the forum, and can set topics out of context.

But, I will probably agree with you, it could be a problem for members using their full name..


Link to comment
Share on other sites


You can change the username to whatever you want before deleting, I'm sure?



Yeah, just change their name before deleting. Also, I'm sure that this would only apply to real names being used, not screen names. Name could be changed to something like "deleted member (member id #)" that way there's some reference.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, changing the name before deleting is an easier option than running a query. However, I still think that username should be deleted automatically. I have looked in to the legal matters of this and it doesn't matter if the member uses real name or not. The member has a right to have their account entirely anonymized. I'm not sure, but I would expect that to be the case for other European countries as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Yes, changing the name before deleting is an easier option than running a query. However, I still think that username should be deleted automatically. I have looked in to the legal matters of this and it doesn't matter if the member uses real name or not. The member has a right to have their account entirely anonymized. I'm not sure, but I would expect that to be the case for other European countries as well.



Then the answer would be to change their display name to something like "FormerUser###" where the ### is the member number. Only thing I could see requesting on this is to option to automate this process when deleting the member.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, I just tested this procedure and the result was strange. From ACP I selected the member and changed his Log In Name. I clicked "Save Member" and saving was confirmed. After that I deleted the member. On the board however, the deleted member was still displayed as Guest_originalusername_*

Can anybody else reproduce this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

mortenz is right... There is NO simple solution. Even if you change user login name or user display name BEFORE you delete the account all of the remaining posts will be signed as Guest_USER_DISPLAY_NAME_*, BUT please take a note that in database each post record has a "author_name" field that stores the user display name that was used AT THE TIME OF POSTING.

Now the worst thing. After account deletion this field is used to sign user remaining posts on the forum.

In my opinion this is a serious issue. Do you have any solution for this?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...