Difference between revisions of "Right to be Forgotten"
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==History== | ==History== | ||
Before the expansion of the internet and search engines such as Google and Yahoo, the right to be forgotten didn't come into conception until recently. In the Pre-internet era, data was not as easily accessible due to its physical nature and public records were difficult to obtain which lead to "practical obscurity" of people's data. This means that the data is effectively protected due to the practical difficulty to access it. Following the digitization of records as well as the expansion of digital libraries for search engines, data became more easily accessible and the right to be forgotten began to come into conception. In 2014, a landmark case of Google vs. Costeja made the right to be forgotten a well known concept. | Before the expansion of the internet and search engines such as Google and Yahoo, the right to be forgotten didn't come into conception until recently. In the Pre-internet era, data was not as easily accessible due to its physical nature and public records were difficult to obtain which lead to "practical obscurity" of people's data. This means that the data is effectively protected due to the practical difficulty to access it. Following the digitization of records as well as the expansion of digital libraries for search engines, data became more easily accessible and the right to be forgotten began to come into conception. In 2014, a landmark case of Google vs. Costeja made the right to be forgotten a well known concept. | ||
| − | ===Google | + | ===Google v. Costeja=== |
| − | In 2010, a resident of Spain named Mario Costeja González filed a complaint against La Vanguardia newspaper due to articles which they had published online from 1998 which contained sensitive information of his. When googling his name, Costeja obtained links to two articles from La Vanguardia which contained information about his forced sale of property in order to pay off social security debts. Costeja requested that La Vanguardia remove this information from their site and also requested that Google remove these links from their search results. | + | In March of 2010, a resident of Spain named Mario Costeja González filed a complaint against La Vanguardia newspaper due to articles which they had published online from 1998 which contained sensitive information of his. When googling his name, Costeja obtained links to two articles from La Vanguardia which contained information about his forced sale of property in order to pay off social security debts. Costeja requested that La Vanguardia remove this information from their site and also requested that Google remove these links from their search results. In July of 2010, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) ruled that La Vanguardia legally had the right to publish this information about Costeja and therefore didn't have to remove it. However, the AEPD upheld the complaint which was directed at Google and ruled that the search engine had the obligation to remove the links to the newspapers from their indexes without necessarily erasing the data. Following this ruling, Google took up claims against the Audiencia Nacional(National High Court of Spain) on the basis that Costeja didn't have the right to erase legally published material. Finally in 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that search engines such as google must uphold the right to erasure. This landmark case resulted in publication of a form by Google which would allow citizens in the EU to request for removal of links that are no longer relevant to their original processing purpose. |
| − | + | ===Argentina=== | |
| + | In Argentina, the lawyer Adolfo Martín Leguizamón Peña was filing similar cases for many celebrities against the search engines Google and Yahoo. These celebrities demanded the removal of certain search results that were linking to photographs of theirs. Most notably, the case of Da Cuhna v. Yahoo and Google in 2009. In her lawsuit with the lower court, Virginia Da Cuhna of Argentina claimed that search results for her name resulted in links to pornographic websites which were using photographs of her without her permission. Judge Virginia Simari of Buenos Aires ruled in favor of Da Cuhna and claimed that she had a right to control her personal image online and Google and Yahoo were violating that right with their search results and therefore needed to remove links to pornographic sites which contained Da Cuhna's pictures. On appeal a three judge court reversed the lower courts decision on the claim that the search engines could not be held accountable for linking to Da Cuhna's images as Da Cuhna had published them herself on her personal website. Although the judges reversed the decision, Judge Ana María R. Brilla de Serrat argued for the importance of the right to be forgotten along with the right to control information about oneself. | ||
==Case Studies== | ==Case Studies== | ||
Revision as of 20:32, 13 March 2019
The right to be forgotten, also commonly known as the right to erasure, is the idea that an individual should have the ability to erase parts of their online identity in which the information is no longer needed for its original processing purpose. This idea arose from individuals who believed that they should be able to control whether or not their information persists online. In the European Union (EU) and Argentina this right has already been implemented with the creation of a law which allows citizens to request that their information is removed from google's search results. The right to be forgotten brings up a number of issues concerning the relationship between internet censorship and the right to privacy, as well as online anonymity problems.
History
Before the expansion of the internet and search engines such as Google and Yahoo, the right to be forgotten didn't come into conception until recently. In the Pre-internet era, data was not as easily accessible due to its physical nature and public records were difficult to obtain which lead to "practical obscurity" of people's data. This means that the data is effectively protected due to the practical difficulty to access it. Following the digitization of records as well as the expansion of digital libraries for search engines, data became more easily accessible and the right to be forgotten began to come into conception. In 2014, a landmark case of Google vs. Costeja made the right to be forgotten a well known concept.
Google v. Costeja
In March of 2010, a resident of Spain named Mario Costeja González filed a complaint against La Vanguardia newspaper due to articles which they had published online from 1998 which contained sensitive information of his. When googling his name, Costeja obtained links to two articles from La Vanguardia which contained information about his forced sale of property in order to pay off social security debts. Costeja requested that La Vanguardia remove this information from their site and also requested that Google remove these links from their search results. In July of 2010, the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) ruled that La Vanguardia legally had the right to publish this information about Costeja and therefore didn't have to remove it. However, the AEPD upheld the complaint which was directed at Google and ruled that the search engine had the obligation to remove the links to the newspapers from their indexes without necessarily erasing the data. Following this ruling, Google took up claims against the Audiencia Nacional(National High Court of Spain) on the basis that Costeja didn't have the right to erase legally published material. Finally in 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that search engines such as google must uphold the right to erasure. This landmark case resulted in publication of a form by Google which would allow citizens in the EU to request for removal of links that are no longer relevant to their original processing purpose.
Argentina
In Argentina, the lawyer Adolfo Martín Leguizamón Peña was filing similar cases for many celebrities against the search engines Google and Yahoo. These celebrities demanded the removal of certain search results that were linking to photographs of theirs. Most notably, the case of Da Cuhna v. Yahoo and Google in 2009. In her lawsuit with the lower court, Virginia Da Cuhna of Argentina claimed that search results for her name resulted in links to pornographic websites which were using photographs of her without her permission. Judge Virginia Simari of Buenos Aires ruled in favor of Da Cuhna and claimed that she had a right to control her personal image online and Google and Yahoo were violating that right with their search results and therefore needed to remove links to pornographic sites which contained Da Cuhna's pictures. On appeal a three judge court reversed the lower courts decision on the claim that the search engines could not be held accountable for linking to Da Cuhna's images as Da Cuhna had published them herself on her personal website. Although the judges reversed the decision, Judge Ana María R. Brilla de Serrat argued for the importance of the right to be forgotten along with the right to control information about oneself.
