Right or Wrong to Be Forgotten?
December 2, 2021
While it is still possible to disappear, it is nearly impossible to forget some past mistakes. In 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union recognized the “right to be forgotten.” The Irish Times reported that Google has something to say on that law, “Google Should Not Get A Say In What Is To Be Forgotten.”
The EU Court of Justice ruled in favor of the “right to be forgotten” against Google’s Spanish subsidiary by Spain’s data protection agency AEPD and a Spanish citizen. The right to be forgotten forces Google to delist information in searches, but the AEPD argued it was in the public’s benefit for information to remain listed.
The biggest issue in question is the current case of the Quinn family against the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation. Should information related to ongoing litigation and national economic concern be removed from the Internet? There is an even bigger question:
“The more fundamental issue which these delistings have drawn attention to, however, is the power of a private company to decide when, and whether, an individual’s right to be forgotten can be enforced. At present, right-to-be-forgotten claims (such as those made in the Quinn case) are considered and decided on by employees of the search-engine operators to whom the request is made. While these search engines publish annual transparency reports which include statistics about how many right-to-be-forgotten applications are made – and how many are successful – these reports do not detail the content of the decisions in right-to-be-forgotten cases – or the factors used in reaching those decisions. The result is that private companies have the power not only to delist articles but to do so based on their own assessment of whether a legitimate right-to-be-forgotten claim exists, what public interest, if any, would require the item to continue appearing in search results, and how to balance any public interest with the data-protection rights of the requesting party.”
There are very few guidelines about how “right to be forgotten” law is applied. Private companies determine who has the right, but how and why do they make that decision?
It sounds like another case of where the present is going to make the standard by which the future will abide.
Whitney Grace, November December 2, 2021
Comments
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
