MN and access to our PMs

If that is correct, and it’s policy rather than a glitch, that is appalling. Imagine if someone had a sustained bullying campaign against you by pm and all they had to do was to delete it from their end to make it disappear? As I said above the msgs in your inbox are your data not the sender’s. The security and data protection on this site seems naive at best judging by the last couple of months events.

Aye - screen capture anything you want to save, is my motto.

To the person I sent seeds to - I agree that you should delete your address, I would have anyway and I didn't screen shot your address! [otherwise i'd probably have sent you loads more seeds]...

There was a discussion around autodeleting PMs over 60 days old when GDPR came in. The consensus was no.

TellsEveryoneRealFacts
If that is correct, and it’s policy rather than a glitch, that is appalling. Imagine if someone had a sustained bullying campaign against you by pm and all they had to do was to delete it from their end to make it disappear? As I said above the msgs in your inbox are your data not the sender’s. The security and data protection on this site seems naive at best judging by the last couple of months events.

On the GDPR FAQ page:

What about my Private Messages?

Private messages are not visible to the public. You can delete Private Messages you have sent at any time by going to your My Account page.

But I can see nothing in My Account related to PMs.

And further, the Admin rights should be very tight, with many tiers and dual access for sensitive data. Judging by the leaked screenshots showing IP addresses a couple of months ago, that certainly didn’t seem to be the case then. Let’s hope it is now.

Last year I sent some seeds to someone and once they had them, they deleted the message from their end, and it disappeared from my in box; this isn't a new thing.

I know that was talked about DrDre, after the Emma leak I think, but I found this on the privacy policy:

Private Messages are stored until you delete them. If you delete your account, your messages will also be deleted.

But also at the bottom of the page under 'Updates':

22 May 2018: deletion policy on Private Messages updated

With no further details

In the interests of security it would be good if we could opt to have PMs we've sent deleted from other people's inboxes when we delete our own copy
No way. That would be a data protection issue. Once the recipient has received the msg it’s their data not yours. There could be a ‘request to recall’ like with email but the recipient would have to consent. Also to whoever asked if deleted msgs are kept. Yes they are, they will have to be for legal reasons, you could be discussing anything that might have to be handed to the police for instance, the only question is who can see them which comes down to MNHQ administrator rights and how they are set up.

Perhaps the messages get deleted when they get to a certain age?

Oh no that's not right I didn't look closely at my sent folder, just selected all and deleted.

In the interests of security it would be good if we could opt to have PMs we've sent deleted from other people's inboxes when we delete our own copy.

It doesn't seem right at all that PMs we've sent could be deleted from our own sent folder because the recipient deletes their copy.

Thats a testable theory.
I did wonder if they were making space on their servers?

It seems to be the case that if I delete a message in my inbox, the origninal message to me is also deleted in the sender's outbox.

Oh dear.

Could it be because the recipient left Mumsnet do you think?

I had no more than 10 sent and 10 received. 6 of the messages which disappeared were from 2017 but 4 of them were from May 2018 with messages before and after that date still there.

I lost PMs a couple of months ago and thought that my inbox only had capacity to take a certain number?

I’m quite concerned because people have sent me sensitive personal information.

It never does any harm to be careful but I'm inclined to think that this is more cock-up than conspiracy.

There seem to have been all sorts of strangeness with the MN software recently. It wouldn't surprise me if these messages are disappearing without any human consciously deleting them.

Of course, that wouldn't be very satisfactory either ...

Oh phew. Thanks, Lass.

None of my pms were about gender critical issues.

Weird. This phenomenon just happened to me. Now, perhaps the MNer I was conversing with deleted it all. Which is clearly fine if so, but it was brief messages with no personal detail so it seems unlikely? If she didn't delete them, I hope she saw my most recent message from just a few minutes ago before they went poof.

I suspect/hope this phenomenon is some random tech issue. It's not just happening when posters PM about GC issues is it?

Is it possible that PMs are purged when a user asks for their account (including their posting history) to be deleted?

According to the thread on Site it is happening where both posters are active and neither have deleted.

But if deleting messages in one's own box, whether inbox or sent automatically deleted them in the other party's box surely we would have noticed this before now?

I don't send or receive that many so no particular need to clear them out.

Is it possible that PMs are purged when a user asks for their account (including their posting history) to be deleted?

I clear out my PMs quite regularly. No particular reason - certainly nothing GC-related - I do it everywhere and for everything, including my emails. Just an obsessive housekeeper.

Anyway.

I did the usual clear out here once and got a PM from someone I'd been talking to - they were worried in case I'd taken offence or something. They mentioned something about a weird looking message.

Could that be it? The person at the other end of the PM deleting it?

It is scary. I suggest you post on the Site thread as well.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/3288763-Private-Messages-Deleted

I'm going to email mnhq and ask