Right to be Forgotten is the legislation that prevents obsolete or irrelevant information from being disseminated online.
The concept of information refers to URLs for news, videos, photos, articles, and other personal data found in search engines such as Google.
The graph shows the percentage of links broken down by type, which Google has evaluated to remove under the European legislation on privacy.
Data is global and goes from 2016 to today.
18.5% are news; 13.5% directories; 12.6% social networks; 53% are various (the page is hosted on a website that does not fit into the other categories).
This includes the Government category, which refers to pages hosted by a government website.
Starting from these data, in the following article, you will discover the key points to understand what the Right to be Forgotten is and how it works.
What is the Right to be Forgotten?
The Right to be Forgotten constitutes legal protection that prevents disseminating irrelevant, obsolete, or defamatory information.
The legislation provides that the right to privacy prevails over the right to information.
Thus was born the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which regulates privacy and the Right to be Forgotten.
According to Google, some of the most common factors to justify the removal of a web page are:
- The evident absence of public interest, such as for pages no longer online (404 error);
- Sensitive information, such as health, political affiliation, religion, etc .;
- Contents relating to minors;
- Convictions or prescribed minutes, exemptions, and acquittals.
What kind of content does not eliminate the Right to be Forgotten?
In exercising the Right to be Forgotten, the GDPR establishes exceptions in the content that:
- Guarantees freedom of expression;
- Comply with legal obligations;
- It is of public interest;
- Has a scientific, statistical, or historical goal;
- Contains a complaint.
If necessary, it is evaluated on a case-by-case basis to ensure a balance between rights and interests.
What legislation protects data in the UK and USA?
Data protection in the UK is governed by:
- EU Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR);
- Data Protection Act 1998.
The USA has different laws for each State.
Who can exercise the Right to be Forgotten?
Any natural or legal person can exercise the Right to be Forgotten within the European Union, according to article 17 of the GDPR / EU.
EU Regulation 2016/679 establishes that:
“The protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data is a fundamental right.”
The European Court of Justice ruling of May 2014 allows any citizen of the European Union to take legal action to remove compromising content that is not of public interest
How to exercise the Right to be Forgotten?
As a first alternative, a user can contact the site’s webmaster to remove the information from the web.
The legislation indicates that it is essential to look on the search engine to exercise the Right to be Forgotten.
The major search engines have their form to exercise this Right, such as the Google form.
Search engines and page editors treat data, permissions, and the impact on people’s privacy differently.
RighttobeForgottenGDPR offers consulting, enforcement and follow-up services in procedures related to the Right to be Forgotten.
The user only needs to contact and indicate which information wants to delete; our team will take care of the process, applying the current legislation.
Does information disappear from the Internet?
The Right to be Forgotten influences the results of searches carried out with the person’s name.
The result will continue to be displayed when a search other than the person’s name is performed.
Conclusions
Internet and everything that revolves around this world are not like traditional media.
The web does not forget, sometimes creating severe problems for individuals and legal entities.
European institutions are adapting to the new era and are trying to tackle digital problems with dedicated legislation.
RighttobeForgottenGDPR offers specialized consulting, enforcement, and follow-up services related to the Right to Be Forgotten procedures.
Our team has lawyers, experts in the Right to be Forgotten, privacy, criminal law, intellectual property, and legal information technology.