Correction and deletion

Art. 16 to Art. 19 GDPR

If our personal data is collected, we have the right to have this data corrected or deleted if necessary. For example, if we have mistyped our name when registering online for a training course, we have the right to have this data corrected immediately. 

According to the GDPR, we also have the "right to be forgotten". In the past, when data was mainly recorded and processed on paper, files were destroyed at the latest when space on the shelf ran out. Now that the majority of data is available digitally, there is no longer any spatial or financial constraint to delete old data. Storage space costs are low and many people think to themselves "Who knows what else the data can be used for?". 

The General Data Protection Regulation therefore clearly regulates when personal data must be deleted: as soon as the purpose for which the data was collected ceases to exist and there is no other legal requirement to retain the data, the data must be deleted.

Legal requirements for the retention of data

This is where things sometimes get a little complicated. Companies and organisations may be subject to legal regulations that oblige them to retain certain data for a longer period of time. For tax reasons, for example, data on payment transactions must be archived for several years. In this case, the company or organisation is subject to national legislation. Please find out what rights apply in your country.

Example

We regularly attended professional training courses at an institute, but have now retired and would therefore like our personal data to be deleted. We ask the organisation to delete our data. Although the institute can now delete our customer account and our settings for communication or advertising, it will only be able to delete data relating to our previous bookings and payment processing once the retention periods under tax and accounting law have expired. 

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