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What is the point of a website deleting IP address logs after a certain period of time? As far as I know, deleted data can be recovered easily, or is there some catch here?

AiriA
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    Maybe easily, but certainly not consistently or reliably. Just because a process has a potential to be reversed does not make the process invalid. – schroeder May 03 '18 at 16:30
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    *"..deleted data can be recovered easily.."* - this is a claim which is not true. First, one can securely delete data if needed. Second, even with simple deletion data will be overwritten after a while since because of space constraints on the disk most deleted data will be eventually overwritten. – Steffen Ullrich May 03 '18 at 17:22
  • That is what I thought, but I doubt companies would make the effort to be thorough while removing less sensitive data. I'm just guessing here, not aware of what actually goes on. – AiriA May 03 '18 at 17:40

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Typically, this is done simply to save space and performance reasons. No one can reasonably keep logs forever, as this would take a lot of space, and huge logs don't make Web servers happy.

Moreover, there is simply no reason. As far as I know, there is no regulation forcing you to keep logs literally forever. A few decades, at most, depending on your industry. So it would be an unnecessary expense.

Finally, I am not a legal, but there might be regulations (probably GDPR) forcing you to not keep logs forever, i.e. to delete them after a while.

A. Darwin
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    GDPR requires you to have the *option* of deleting a user's data on request, including IP addresses, unless there is another regulatory requirement to retain that information, such as HIPAA. – Monica Apologists Get Out May 03 '18 at 19:01
  • and the NSA's requirement for a backbone ISP router is a copy of all your router traffic please copy to this port here – MichaelEvanchik May 03 '18 at 20:27