Why: The law, the need and the urgency
- GDPR and the Schrems II judgment states that EU citizens’ user data (e.g. IP addresses, other meta data) may only be shared with non-EU countries if EU citizens enjoy the same protection compared to EU countries
- When users embed media from third-party platforms (e.g. YouTube, Giphy, Imgur, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify, TikTok, Pinterest, Vimeo, SoundCloud, etc.), there is no way of knowing if and what user data is being transferred and shared with non-EU servers and databases
- As there exist no binding contracts with any of the third-party platforms regarding guarantees about the EU-conform protection of user data, the community cannot continue using embeds that do or may transfer user data to non-EU countries without an added layer of user protection
- If a EU based community has external media enabled that might share data to non-EU countries and users cannot fully opt-out of it by now, then every single embedded media is a potential data protection violation that can and will be punished severely
- Fully disabling embedding external media in a community is not a solution, as it would strip a community of an integral part of its character as users often share videos, memes, gifs in general and other interesting / funny / noteworthy content in order to engage with each other
- In order to keep communities alive by allowing external media to be embedded, and to also obey EU laws, there needs to be a “privacy by default” solution
How: The process
- We need a solution that combines both enabling embedded external media in the community as well as following EU data protection laws
- The solution should be easy to use for both the users who share it and the users who may or may not want to consume it
- Users who share media should be able to make use of the standard embedding URLs, codes and tools
- Users who (may or may not) consume the media have to make their own decision about if they consent to their own user data being shared with the media source’s platform or not → i.e. Users who (may or may not) consume the media need to give explicit and deliberate consent based on transparent information and after being informed about the potential risks (”Your data might be transmitted and shared with a country that acts outside the EU GDPR regulations”)
What: The solution and its functionality
- We need a solution that functions as a border / guard between the media itself and the user
- Users who want to share media can copy & paste an external URL into the text editor
- The text editor identifies the embedded media
- The solution creates a placeholder for the embedded media
- On the placeholder, the user is informed about what will happen if they decide to enable the embedded media
- Ideally the user gets to choose between only enabling this particular embedded media (”Display this content”) or any embedded media of the same platform / source (”Always display content from this platform”)
- Additionally the user is being presented with a link to the privacy policy page of the platform the media is hosted at
- Additionally the user is being presented with a direct external link to the media on the external platform
- If the user decides against enabling the media, they don’t have to do anything
- If the user consents to enabling the media, they click on a button on the placeholder to activate it → only then the embed content is being loaded and data is being shared
- There is a dedicated landing page that lets users see what embeddings / platforms they have enabled and lets them control (enable / disable) it
