The CoC policy, which allows automatic sharing of "any information regarding an escalated/appealed report" to the OpenJS Code of Conduct team, may conflict with GDPR requirements, particularly around special categories of personal data and consent requirements.

This question was originally borught up to @joyeecheung in nodejs/admin#990 (comment).

Key GDPR Concerns:

1. Special Categories of Personal Data (Article 9): Code of Conduct incidents often involve sensitive information that falls under GDPR's special categories (e.g., political opinions, nationality-related discrimination). Sharing such data automatically may be prohibited without explicit consent.

   • Reference: https://gdpr.eu/article-9-processing-special-categories-of-personal-data-prohibited/

2. Necessity and Data Minimization (Article 5): GDPR requires that data processing be "necessary" and limited to what's needed. Complete export of chat histories or communications may not meet the necessity test when a redacted summary could achieve the same purpose.

   • Reference: https://gdpr.eu/article-2-processing-personal-data-by-automated-means-or-by-filling-system/
   • GDPR Guidelines on Legitimate Interest: https://www.edpb.europa.eu/system/files/2024-10/edpb_guidelines_202401_legitimateinterest_en.pdf

3. Legitimate Interest Limitations: While the OpenJS privacy policy (https://privacy-policy.openjsf.org/) may claim legitimate interest, this doesn't automatically exempt the sharing. GDPR requires a three-part test for legitimate interest, and for special categories of data, explicit consent is typically the most applicable legal basis.

4. Conflict with Existing TSC Governance: The automatic sharing conflicts with existing TSC documentation (referenced in doc: improve transparency and inclusivity of TSC meetings nodejs/node#58837 and doc: clarify details of TSC public and private meetings nodejs/node#58925) that requires approval before sharing meeting information or summaries with external parties.

Specific Example: If someone files a CoC complaint about nationality-based discrimination and shares political views or sensitive context with a trusted moderation team member, automatically forwarding this information to the OpenJS team (with unknown political perspectives) without explicit consent could violate GDPR Article 9.