In short
We have many options for you, the user, to be able to remove much of the information yourself:
The Long on GDPR
GDPR states we must verify the user's identity. While this law is specific to the EU, if your personal information was posted by you or another person and you are outside the EU, we will apply the law the same. You can find the information on the Right to Erasure here. To quote: “However, the identity of the impacted person must be proven in a suitable way, as otherwise additional information could be requested from the responsible party, or the erasure could be refused.” If you are demanding and rude to us, we will kindly ask for the information required by us by the law to obtain, confirm, and move forward with. Act like a nice human being, then we will help you without the need for these steps (within reason):
To confirm your identity, please submit a ticket and upload all 3 images:
You must be able to log into the user account you are requesting erasure and the history of the IP addresses must match up (i.e. hacking someone’s account and requesting erasure will not be tolerated). Once you have verified your personal information by providing a ticket with your logged in account, we can move forward with your request.
GDPR dictates that the Right to Erasure is for personal data only. Forum posts (such as tutorials, discussions, private messages, profile posts, etc.), unless you actually posted your personal data, those types of posts/threads do not constitute as personal data. As per Article 17, 1(a) “the personal data are no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which they were collected or otherwise processed;”. When signing up on the site, end users agree to accepting cookies, submission of their email address to be stored in our database, as well as logging IP addresses to ensure the safety of the community; in short, it is still necessary to retain these bits of personal data in interest of the safety of the public and to protect the rights and freedoms of other individuals. Data which is kept in the interest of freedom of information or for statistical purposes is exempt from the "Right to Erasure." For further information on the exceptions to the Right to Erasure, please refer to Article 17 (3), Recital 47, and Recital 49.
If it is personal data that you posted in a discussion(s) and would like it removed, you can either edit your own post or it is up to you, the user, to point us to the exact post(s) containing your personal data that you posted. If you are a member still in good standing (not banned), please report the posts that you’ve posted that contains personal data. If a user has quoted you on previously public data, that situation does not fall under the Right of Erasure or Right to be Forgotten; however, if we feel it is a breach of your privacy, we will take appropriate steps to reconcile.
For unbanned users, you can navigate to your "Personal details" option (using the drop down on your name or clicking that link) to remove any previously submitted personal details that you wish to remove from the site. This feature is not available for banned users as we use it to cross reference those users that are subverting our rules on our "One account policy".
If you wish to subscribe or revoke your subscription to receive emails from us, edit who can view your account details, who can contact you, etc. you can do so on the Privacy and Preferences options in your users settings found in the user drop down.
Those demanding we remove all their posts will end up being ignored. Feel free to contact the ICO so we can talk to them in regards to your case. If you come to us kindly and have links to specific Personal Data posts, we will help. If you come out the gates demanding we remove everything, we will gladly speak to the ICO. If we can't find your Personal Data from what you've posted, it will be fun having the ICO waste their time figuring it out as well; since they know regular forum posts with randoms discussions do not constitute as personal data. And demanding things will only make us move as slow as the law allows us to. Be nice and we will work with you.