The Right to Be Forgotten

Introduction:

After Mario  Costeja successfully erased the information related to his home foreclosure because of the failure to pay personal debts in the “battle” with Google and local press Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia in 2010, the right to be forgotten (RTBF) has gradually come into the notice of public. In 2014, the right to be forgotten was written into Data Protection Directive of the EU by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), claiming that search engine has the responsibility to remove links to information that is no longer relevant to data subjects (Google Spain v. AEPD, 2014, para. 94). This essay will focus on the main issues such as, implementation problems, importance of data, conflicts between the freedom of speech to show how difficult it is for the right to be forgotten to function.

It can be argued that the digital lives of human being are important data for following generation to study. Those who advocate against the right to be forgotten claim that this right would be a threat towards the protection of digital data in the digital age. (). With the prevalence of using online cloud server to store personal data, over 75% American use cloud server to store their data.  Massive and various information from about tradition, entertainment to politics and economics can be found online, which contributes to a rich picture that about modern lives that future researchers such as anthropologists, scientists, sociologists can study.  

Similarly, Paul-Choudhury (2011) considers this issue from an angle of human history competence and indicates that the right to be forgotten is likely to cause information breaks between generations. It’s less likely to make those people trying to get their information deleted aware that this could potentially damage richness and variety of history, as when engaged with the process of information deletes, little concentration would be moved on this issue. Moreover, they hold an opinion that their statistics as an individual, like a drop water in the sea, would not have a huge impact on history (). In fact, as the booming development of IT industry, modern computing power allows us to have the capability to analyse a greater amount of statistics and data than we use to be able to, hence, each segment in this database is becoming increasingly important and valuable.

However, the majority who want the information to be deleted obviously do not want their story to be immortalized into history and it can be argued that they can benefit a lot from using the RTBF (). For example, the right to be forgotten make it possible for those people with crime records to start a new life, because the prison experience has been erased, which discourages the dissemination of any information from this period of time/concerning this experience, such as serving time and rehabilitation date (Rosen, 2012). For victims, this right allows them to distance themselves from the crimes they involved and offers a chance to bring them back to normal life again (137).

A damaged personal imaged or reputation can have long-lasting negative impact on every sphere of life even future employment. RTBF function as a privacy right provides a remedy and ensures that everyone has a future not being tainted. (133) enlarges the radiation of the benefits of RTBF to the public and claim that this right facilitates the promotion of personal information autonomy, as people have been given, compared to the past, reinforced controls over their personal data. In other words, this reinforcement indicates the gradually rebalanced tendency between free speech and privacy in digital world. The this right has been improved to the level/to reach the level of whole society.

While it is true that RTBF help those people with “special” past start anew, it still can be argued that this history should be remembered rather than deleted if they have the passion to life and can succeed in spite of their mistakes (). J. Brown (2002) states that, for instance, James Brown had his robbery record when he was 16, however, he assisted on organizing a gospel quartet during the time in prison. Similarly, although Shon Hopwood was convicted of bank robberies in his 23, after rehabilitation, he devoted himself into law and became a clerk of judges, working for US Court in the end (Memmott, 2013). Cornealious "Mike" Anderson is relatively lucky one, compared with others, as he was released by clerical mistake after he committed a robbery. While he made most out of this chance and successfully changed his life. After 13 years, the court discovered the error and managed to find him again. Surprisingly, he was released in couple of days as the court claimed that it won’t serve any purpose if put him in jail again (Staff, 2014).

It can be argued that freedom of speech is incompatible with the right to be forgotten and (the clashes between which could always be triggered over and over again when) with the expansive boundaries of which, the freedom of speech could shrink in many cases (). A typical example for this is the case of Guidotti Russo, who is a Spanish plastic surgeon. In 1991, Guidotti Russo had an incident with his patient, which has been written into a newspaper article published in that year. After almost twenty years, this doctor wanted Google to erase this article as it still can be seen online when people search his name on Google (46). However, google at first, refused this request because of the reason that the right of free expression is also protected by Spanish law. When facing this conflict between the right to be forgotten and freedom of speech, the Spanish data regulator stood on the side of this plastic surgeon and declared that search engines such as Google are exceptions from newspapers, journals, other legal publications to embrace the protection of the right of free speech (47). It is of difficulty to ignore the collisions frequently triggered by the right to be forgotten and freedom of speech and it seems that in many cases, the freedom of speech would be the first one to compromise once clashes occur. Furthermore, (56) pointed out that EC law still keep silent towards this issue.