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Comment on Immutability Changes Everything (2016) [pdf]

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The “right to be forgotten” has caused a lot of conflicts with certain immutable data stores. If I can reconstruct a snapshot with a user’s data, have I actually “forgotten” them? Having a deadline where the merges fully occur and old data is rendered inaccessible is sometimes necessary legally.

You can always "redact" previous data. You can treat the sensible entries themselves as mutable, without it breaking the system design around immutable data.

I have also seen a scheme where you store the hash, and have a separate lookup table for sensible data, that you can redact more easily without messing with the log.

Likewise with database backups.

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