QRZ address data in log files

PoLo - Issues & Ideas
21

PO box costs 400 euros per year + opening fee was rougly 500 euros here in Finland.

Alan explained this situation very clearly, thanks!

In todays data leeching world, we must be careful what to put and where. All are being used for big corporation profits without ethics. The best way to prevent this is not to publish. All is not lost. Protect democrazy and free speech. Data is and will be used as political weapon already and that needs to stop.

Check EU GDPR, it is to protect EU citizens from corporations who have no shame of using the data illegally or morally wrong.

22

But back to the original discussion…

When we do a QRZ lookup, we obtain lots of data but only capture: Name, City, State, Country, County, Postal code, Grid, Lat, Lon (which are derived from grid), Image, Timezone, CQ zone, ITU Zone and DXCC code. (you can actually see the code where this happens)

When we combine all data sources, we only use Name, City, State and Grid. (again, link to code)

And finally when we generate an ADIF file, we only include Name, City, State and Grid (here’s where in the code).

We do save the longer set of QRZ data in the internal records, and use it for offline lookups.

With all that in mind, then… what would be the ideal set of features to improve the apps privacy handling, and also the privacy practices of you as an operator?

I think the most drastic one would be to not do lookups at all, and that’s already an option by disabling QRZ.com and other lookup sources.

Next, on the other end, we could make it so that ADIF logs we generate do not include any of this personal information. This could be a setting that applies to all ADIF exports.

And now that I think of it, since PoLo is smart enough to generate different ADIFs for different purposes, I think the right way to do this in general is to not include anything personal in ADIF files for POTA, SOTA, etc. We’d still include it in the generic ADIF which can be used for your own personal log workflow and storage, but the files you have to send out should be stripped of private information. This would prevent you, the operator, from breaking the GDPR and in general from accidentally violating the privacy of your fellow hams. I’ll work on this for the next release.

Is there any other use-case I’m missing?

23

Actually, by “next release” I meant “I’m adding it to the current release”.

It wasn’t that complicated.

Now most ADIF exports will not include private info (and this also strips out any personal notes you might have added!!!)

And what used to be called “Generic ADIF” is now “Full ADIF” and is the only one that includes that private data.

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24

Thanks for implementing this!

25

Thanks for bringing it up and insisting on it.

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