Mumsnet Corpus

[TokyoBouncyBall]

Not a TAAT, but a bit of googling as a result of a now deleted thread has led me to this:

https://fold.aston.ac.uk/handle/123456789/18

I note it says that the License is uncertain. Can you confirm that you have given permission for posts to be used in this way, or is there something that Aston might like to look into?

I note it says Users who wish to access this dataset must make a detailed application to FoLD and the researcher, as well as potentially gain additional agreement from an external organisation before they can be approved for access.

Given one of the uses it is being put to, I think it is a bit dubious to say the least.

Ha. Because they've behaved with such integrity so far. Give them our id to match up with user names and trust them to behave appropriately and ethically and legally.
They're having a fucking laugh

Aye. I’d not be doing that.

I trust they believe we button up the back.

@JustineMumsnet
You advised that

When an organisation acquires an individual’s personal data from a publicly-available source they automatically become what’s known as the Data Controller of that data and are responsible for processing that data in compliance with GDPR. If anyone has any particular concerns about personal information Aston may hold then do contact their Data Protection Officer: www.aston.ac.uk/about/statutes-ordinances-regulations/publication-scheme/data-protection.

But that is meaningless for anyone who doesn't literally post under username FirstnameMiddlenameSurnameDOB
according to Aston. Do you have any additional advice?

considering we want to know what info they hold under our user names and not our real names @JustineMumsnet As no one in their right mind is going to willingly hand over their real life information to Aston University especially as in this instance it is completely pointless can Mumsnet hq do what a poster much earlier on suggested and set up a thread where mumsnet set out the basic what data do you have on me question etc in the opening post and then users can just add their request "Me too" as individual posts. It would also mean we could do it for our other usernames as well and would save us all having to faff around especially as this mess is not of our making.

It's Aston's mess and they should be working with MNHQ to make this as easy as possible for those mumsnetters affected who want to know what data Aston has on them.

As for Aston sending the information they have back to individual, as MNHQ already knows all our usernames and the emails associated with them I doubt anyone would mind if Aston sent the responses to MNHQ to forward on to us.

OR ASTON UNIVERSITY CAN COME UP WITH A WAY TO DO THIS THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE US DOXING OURSELVES AS THEY ARE THE ONES IN THE WRONG HERE!

They are playing dumb to try to fob you off.

The ICO says data controllers have to consider pseudonymised data to be personal data because the pseudonym is the only factor stopping the dataset from being linked to a named individual. https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/personal-information-what-is-it/what-is-personal-data/what-is-personal-data/#pd4 Mumsnet posts are pseudonymous, not anonymous.

The ICO also says: if you could at any point use any reasonably available means to re-identify the individuals to which the data refers, that data will not have been effectively anonymised but will have merely been pseudonymised

We read all the time of Mumsnetters being "outed", recognised by someone they know, because of real-life circumstances matching posting histories. The scrapists were developing computational linguistic analysis techniques that could match pseudonymous posters here with real name Amazon or Trip Advisor reviews. They were literally creating the "reasonably available means to re-identify the individuals to which the data refers".

Do they think that we are so stupid that we cannot see this?

Thank you @VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia

Have replied with that, more or less. Will update.

Seriously, Aston should just delete all of the Mumsnet data they took.

There's no need for all the pussyfooting around and jumping through hoops to get each individual's data deleted. They shouldn't have had the bloody data in the first place.

Saw your user name and as I did these earlier I couldn't resist...

@Boiledbeetle I love those, you've made my day! Thank you.

Yup. It doesn't make sense (for all sorts of reasons) to do individual requests. It's an impossible task without self-doxxing, so the only option is for all data to be removed.

Then, if MN data is so bloody valuable, they can apply through the proper channels, at which point MNHQ will hopefully tell them to FOTTFSOF.

They do need to delete the data sets, but the individual requests would mean that they actually have to dig around a bit to see if there's any bits lurking in thesis and presentations, funding application documents etc that they haven't deleted.

Can you ask Aston if they have scraped any other 'real' (or assumed to be real) names linked to our pseudonyms and/or our email addresses which tie us formally to the pseudonyms we use to post? Unless they've done this, they can't verify anything against the latter. Surely this backs them into a corner because they have to admit to holding more data than they've previously said, or they are asking the impossible from us.

Also, I still really want to know the exact range of dates of the data they took, including EP's last set.

Thanks, Vito.

That's disingenuous bullshit from Aston. I'd be putting in a complaint directly to the ICO.

Here’s my photo ID for attention of Aston University’s Forensic Linguistics Department:

I'm undecided which to use for mine!

Yes to this. Although slight problem is that a thread will only allow us to post "me too" under one of our user names.

You can change your username during a thread if you already have the name. As shown with this post

I didn’t know this. I thought they’d stopped that from happening.

I think the change was that whichever name you first posted as on a thread is the one it reverts to for the rest of that thread, so you have to manually change a post username if you are using two, it three, or four!! Names in one thread and you can't just make one up as you post. You already have to own the name.

The scrapists were developing computational linguistic analysis techniques that could match pseudonymous posters here with real name Amazon or Trip Advisor reviews. They were literally creating the "reasonably available means to re-identify the individuals to which the data refers".

Do they think that we are so stupid that we cannot see this?

This!

Here's my photo ID.

My ID. I look pretty good for someone from 1479 BCE or thereabouts.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5071052-trans-history-week

https://giphy.com/gifs/leelee-sobieski-jehanne-darc-mis-heronas-favoritas-GZneRZ7NtcKnC

Continuation here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/5072884-corpus-2

Thank you. This isn't going away anytime soon!