Earlier this month, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) confirmed that rights to privacy under the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights included the right for links to personal data that are "inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed" to be removed from search results. The case specifically involved a Google search. I wrote a diary about it at the time.
Today, Google published the form for EU citizens and residents to apply to have certain links removed. As predicted, this requires the applicant to state the reason for requesting the removal and Google can refuse to do this if there is an over-riding reason for including it. To quote from the form:
In implementing this decision, we will assess each individual request and attempt to balance the privacy rights of the individual with the public’s right to know and distribute information. When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information—for example, information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials.
The much quoted attempts by a politician or convicted paedophile to have links about them removed would thus immediately fall under the "public interest" provision. If, however, Google were to refuse to remove a link and the individual wanted to appeal, they have the right to do so. The case would go to one of 29 "information commissioners" set up by each of the member states and the EU for data held by the organization in its central databases. Either side could further appeal to the ECJ.
There was at the time of the ECJ decision a lot of ill-informed speculation and comment, including from the founder of Wikipedia. Notably, the "public interest" argument for retaining links was misunderstood. It would not be adequate for Google to show the public might have a prurient interest in somebody but that access to the information is "for the common wellbeing or general welfare".
You will note that I did not just say citizens of EU countries. The Fundamental Charter simply states "everyone has the right ...". Thus, for example, American citizens resident in Europe can apply. Equally case law has extended the geographical scope of the Charter so that areas of countries under the control of a member state may be equally covered by the provisions as in the UK Supreme Court's decision that the "right to life" extended to soldiers in Iraq in a case of inadequate equipment.
The question now that both the principle of the "right to be forgotten" and the means of redress has been accepted and a simple procedure adopted in Europe - why not in the home of Google?