
Ask HN: Delete a U.S. FB Account While in Europe - hellofunk
As an American, you are not protected under GDPR. Yet apparently, if you live in Europe, you are, regardless of nationality. What distinguishes how FB <i>should</i> behave if an American abroad deletes their FB account vs an American at home? And would waiting until a Europe trip to delete your account make any difference? (presumably because you&#x27;d be doing it from a European network, similar to an American abroad?)
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jackgolding
Hypothetically, if you have EU citizenship by ancestry you would be protected
under GDPR. If you have this but have never been to Europe, how is Facebook
able to determine that from a US IP you aren't eligible to delete your account
under GDPR? (i.e. a true delete rather than their fake delete)

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hellofunk
I think you are talking about the reverse -- how can FB know you are just an
American visiting Europe vs. one actually living there? Because in the latter
case, you are covered under GDPR but I don't think you are under the first
one.

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jackgolding
GDPR covers EU residents so you don't need to be a citizen (i.e. you could
travel to EU and delete all your data) - see chapter 1 "your company is
established outside the EU but offers goods or services to, or monitors the
behaviour of, individuals within the EU."

EDIT: reading a bit more seems that some companies think that its only when a
data subject has data processed within the EU (i.e. they data subject is in
the EU) or the data processing is done in the EU.

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giardini
Nice try, NSA!

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krrw
You don't need GDPR to delete an FB account. You can always head on to
[https://facebook.com/help/delete_account](https://facebook.com/help/delete_account)
to initiate the process right away.

~~~
romanovcode
This will not delete your account. It will mark it as "deleted" in database
after 14 days of inactivity.

You need GDPR to actually delete your info from databases.

