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Redbox left PII on decommissioned machines

(digipres.club)
294 points NotPractical | 2 comments | 16 Oct 24 00:15 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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larodi ◴[16 Oct 24 06:22 UTC] No.41856126[source]▶
Are there any laws in any country governing how such equipment is supposed to be decommissioned in case if bankruptcy?

This does not seem to be an isolated case, it just happening more and more with advance of technology.

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nextlevelwizard ◴[16 Oct 24 06:54 UTC] No.41856290[source]▶
What are they going to do? Sue the bankrupted company?
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scott_w ◴[16 Oct 24 11:29 UTC] No.41857888[source]▶
If a company dealing in toxic chemicals goes bankrupt, is it functionally legal to just dump them in the nearby river? I’d be amazed if countries don’t have legal processes in place to deal with situations like this and maybe the courts haven’t caught up to this use case?
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1. consteval ◴[16 Oct 24 22:07 UTC] No.41864330[source]▶
I think historically in the US that's exactly how it's been done, and then we just clean it up later (or never). In the meantime a bunch of people get sick
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2. scott_w ◴[17 Oct 24 20:22 UTC] No.41873375[source]▶
I don’t know the US system but in the UK you have two basic routes to running a business: sole trader or LLC.

In the former, short of dying, it’s not possible to “disappear,” because you’re personally liable for everything. I’d guess that includes data breaches.

In the latter, it’s also not really possible because the company must be wound up if it goes bankrupt. In the worst case, the government appoints administrators to wind the company up, who would be responsible for handling the assets.

Now, if the processes aren’t up to scratch, maybe that’s a thing that needs to be fixed, but the structure is there to do it. At least in the UK.