Debian is looking for new data protectionists

Debian's volunteer team, which handled data protection matters according to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has resigned en masse. The Debian project is now looking for new volunteers who are interested in the topic and can envision contributing.

Project leader Andreas Tille announced this in the first mail of the year to the Debian Developer mailing list. "The data protection team was established in 2018 against the backdrop of the new European data protection legislation to provide a point of contact for external inquiries regarding data stored by Debian and to advise Debian members on the project's data protection obligations," Tille explained. The team had set up the public privacy policy and forwarded inquiries from individuals where appropriate.

The three previous team members have now stepped down from their duties. Tille thanked Jonathan McDowell (noodles), Tollef Fog Heen (tfheen), and Matthew Vernon (matthew) for their work on the team. With their resignation, their powers have now been revoked.

Data Protectionists urgently needed

As all three members resigned at the same time, the Debian project is now urgently looking for volunteers to fill these roles. Despite constructive discussions at Debconf, no one has come forward yet to join the data protection team. As a result, all GDPR inquiries now land with project management, which already has too much on its plate. "If you are interested in data protection and in improving the existing privacy policy and working with teams that process personal data to improve workflows for handling data protection-related inquiries, then please get in touch with us!" Tille concluded his mail.

Tille did not elaborate on why the previous data protection team resigned en masse in that mail. In another mail he explained though: „The previous team stepped back mainly due to a lack of capacity and enthusiasm to take the work further, not because of specific problems.“

(dmk)