So, user11446 is the "standard" user for all deleted accounts? Is it always the same, user11446?

@user - No. Yours would show as user11175. 11446 happens to be the user ID of the account that I use for testing stuff.

How is this then anonymised, if everyone gets a different one, it is not anonymised because it can still be tracked back. You appear to even know what mine will be.

It won't link to your account. It merely shows your old user ID, but that won't be useful information.

This does not really adhere to EU regulation and the "right to be forgotten". That law requires that everyone has a right to have his content online erased. I would be happy to have it anonymised, if there was a way to NEVER link it back to me, but apparently this is not the case and people can be identified. Is there a legal department that can be contacted for clarifications? This violates EU law as it is. Thanks

@user Less than two minutes of searching turned up this answer about the topic. I'm sure if you search you can find more.

@user - For legal issues on Stack Exchange, you can contact them here.

@sphennings That's irrelevant and legally useless. SE can say what they want, it does mean it is legally valid until it is challenged. Unless you are an attorney specialising in EU privacy laws you should not attempt to answer something sarcastically saying that "two minutes"of searching are enough. That is why I was asking if there is a legal department who I am sure would be better informed about it.

@ArwenUndómiel Thank you, I will contact them to get clarification. I appreciate your help.

@user - As I understand it, EU law wouldn't apply as SE is a US based company, although as you say, I am not an expert in the law. I don't even think this has been set as a precedent yet, since the EU privacy laws for that are so new.

@user - Also, the answerer on that question is a SE employee, so I would imagine that they already discussed it with the legal dept. But again, IANAL and I do not play one on the internet.

@user the ID number is different for all the different stack.exchange networks knowing the ID here is not related to your IDs to your other networks. Or if someone knows your ID to some other stack.exchange cannot find your ID here.

@clark SE is visible in EU, as such it must follow EU regulations for EU users. Regarding your last comment, that is why I need clarification. You might be right, but in that case I am not sure why SE would not have the same id for any deleted user. If my userxxxx is different from your useryyyy if we both deleted, it seems to imply that someone, at some level, will be able to reconnect my xxxx id to me and your yyyy id to you, otherwise we could both be renamed to deleted_user, no need to differentiate us. If this, as it seems, is true, it would not provide complete anonymity.

@clark However, SE might just want to have a way to differentiate the fact that a user wrote my answers and another user wrote yours. It is unclear from reading through which one is true, so having the legal department give a formal reply can be useful. I am sure they will try to make it correct and exhaustive.

@clark So, it is not a two minute googling that provides the answer, and your comments are quite appreciated, as I did not know that each id would be different in each different SE, and that's useful information. Thank you!

@user That law requires that everyone has a right to have his content online erased. I'm not clear which content you're referring to, but it is worth noting that any questions, answers, and comments you write on the SE platform are not your content. By agreeing to the terms of service, you agreed that the content belongs to SE.

@Beofett SE cannot enforce its own rules if they are against EU laws. SE can say in its terms of service that it will own my soul, but good luck in enforcing it or have a judge agree with them. Before commenting one needs to have a basic understanding of how laws work.

@user You asked how to delete your account, and your posts. You were told how to delete your account and the current policy on deleting posts. If you want Stack Exchange to change their policies, complaining in the comments, on IPS meta isn't the way to do it. You can try to post on Meta Stack Exchange or you can contact Stack Exchange's legal team via email. If you just want a legal analysis and not change policy you might be able to ask on Law but check to see if it's on topic there first. We're more lenient with what we allow in comments on meta but this is increasingly unrelated to the question

@user before commenting, you should probably read the terms of service. Content you write that you agreed belongs to someone else is not the same as your soul, and I really doubt that you understand the law as well as you think you do, but since you're clearly more interested in being condescending than obtaining advice, I'll just leave you to your petulant tantrum.

@sphennings I am just replying to comments addressed to me. They are posting comments unrelated to the question (and without any understanding of the law), I am just replying. Find any unrelated comment by me, that was not a reply to a specific comment addressed directly to me. Did I ever write that I want SE to change its policies?

You're arguing that SE's ownership of your voluntary contributions is overruled by GDPR's "Right to be forgotten" clause, even though it specifically states that that clause only applies to personal data. It should also be noted that this right requires controllers to compare the subjects' rights to "the public interest in the availability of the data" when considering such requests. But go on with accusing everyone of "not knowing the basics of law" when you clearly haven't read it yourself.