Date Privacy and Twitch; Do I have the right to access my chat logs?

Question

Under Data Privacy laws, the user has a right to access their data, erasure, etc. Yet under Twitch the users have no way to access their own logs, only the streamer and a team of mods.

This has always struck me as odd, that I can one day, theoretically, start recieving personal information about myself, where I was, what I was watching, what I was typing, from an unknown party (mods) who has access to information that I didn't even know had been stored, accessed or perhaps that I didn't even know exist if sufficent time passed.

It's something i've noticed recently, with the most recent unban system put in place. Users are requesting for unbans yet given no insight into what they said prior to being banned. Yet, years after the fact, these logs are available for mods to see. I believe the user should have access to that information and indeed the right of erasure in case of personal information accidentally being posted. Would I be mistaken?

I compare it to something like Youtube comments. Where one can very easily modify, delete and view a history of their logs. Even Facebook has the choice to download a file of everything they have on record for their chat history and activity. Curious how Twitch avoids this responsibility when the act of commenting on Twitch feels no different than Youtube or Facebook commenting.

Answer 1

The Art 15 GDPR right to access is pretty absolute. There are only three grounds under which access to a copy of your data can be denied:

• Art 12(5): the request is “manifestly unfounded”, e.g. clearly just submitted for trolling
• Art 12(5): the request is “excessive”, e.g. if you repeat the same request very frequently
• Art 15(4): access to a copy would “adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others”

Thus, I am confident that Twitch would respond to an access request with a copy of all your chat messages. Of course, the chat messages might be useless without context, but providing that context might infringe on the privacy rights of others (see Art 15(4)).

There are two caveats to this right.

• The data need not be machine-readable, unless the more limited Art 20 right to data portability also applies.

• Twitch is under no explicit obligation to provide access in a self-service manner, e.g. through an app or web interface. It would probably in the best interest of Twitch to provide self-service means, but right now the Twitch privacy policy (permalink) asks you to exercise your rights by emailing [email protected]. Alternatively, their privacy choices page contains an entry to “Obtain access to or a copy of certain personal data we hold about you”, which contains a barely-visible link to a web form where you can request chat data.