The ECJ backs ‘right to be forgotten’ in surprise ruling against Google
Anna Sonny, 16 May 2014
This week, the European Court of Justice ruled that Google must amend its search results at the request of people who wish to erase outdated and irrelevant information about themselves on the internet.
A Spanish man named Mario Costeja Gonzalez initiated the landmark case when he did a Google search for his name and found a newspaper article dating from 1998 about the repossession of his house. Seeing as the debt had been settled, he took the case to the Spanish data protection agency, arguing that it infringed his privacy. The agency upheld the complaint against Google Inc and its Spanish subsidiary. Google appealed the decision and the case was then taken to the ECJ, the EU’s highest court, which surprisingly ruled against tech giant Google.
The Luxembourg-based court said Google can now be required to remove data that are ‘inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed.’
The ruling contradicts a non-binding opinion from an Advocate General of the Court last year that said deleting sensitive information from search results would interfere with freedom of expression.
Google is now concerned about the method and possible cost of removing such information.
Edward Snowden’s leak last year of information on US surveillance programmes provoked much discussion on the issue of privacy and data protection in Europe.
The European Commission put forward a proposal in 2012 suggesting a ‘right to be forgotten’ and an obligation on organisations to report data breaches as soon as possible in order to protect people’s online identities.
European Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding attempted to push her draft Data Protection bill through this Parliament but it has undergone an overwhelming 4,000 amendments, and is now a ‘right to erasure’ of specific information. The Council of Ministers still has to submit its views on the watered down proposals before they can become law.
The ECJ’s ruling does only apply to Europe, but it has raised complex questions globally over freedom of speech and whether information should be removed from history just because someone finds it unfavourable; it is still the truth.
Ironically, the man who wished to protect his past has had over 800 articles written about the case and will now be remembered for the very reason he wished to be forgotten.
Google will not be deleting the material just the Google links to it. Consequently, other search engines will be able to access it. I have seen no report which says other search engines will have to abide by the ECJ ruling.
The other practical nonsense about this ruling is the sheer volume of request they are likely to attract. An analogy with the Information Commissioner;’s office is appropriate. Despite having a staff of several hundred they are so snowed under that any action on a complaint is likely to to be delayed for a year or more – a complaint is simply placed in a queue – and then takes an age to come to a conclusion when the IC’s office start investigating.
The likelihood is that this will be rich man’s game because they will be able to take Google to court to challenge a refusal to destroy links.