I would like to share a conceptual idea for discussion, not a concrete implementation proposal.
One of the current challenges for large and long-lived projects like Debian is the accumulation of historical logs, archives, and public records that may contain personal data (IPs, emails, names), especially for oldstable and EOL releases.
My idea is a layered approach to data minimization:
Strict retention periods for raw logs (for example 30–90 days).
Automatic sanitization and anonymization of historical public records.
Use of an AI-assisted classification step (human-in-the-loop), where:
Clear personal data is anonymized automatically.
Ambiguous cases are isolated for human review.
Preservation of technical knowledge via summarized, signed incident records, instead of keeping large volumes of raw personal data.
The goal would be to reduce GDPR exposure while keeping technical value, without rewriting history or removing useful information.
I am not proposing to implement this myself, only offering an idea that could be discussed or explored in the future.
Thank you for your time.
Best regards,
pipo