EU judges to hear Google 'right to be forgotten' case. IAPP. Broadcast Date: May 30, 2014 11 am - 12:30 pm EDT On 13 May, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that Google may be forced to remove links to factual and legally permissible news stories about individuals from its search results that are “inadequate, irrelevant … or excessive” under a “right to be forgotten” that is derived from the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.
In the U.S., access to legal, factual information is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. Rarely, if ever, has there been a decision that presents such a stark contrast. Join our expert panel as they tackle these questions and more: • What is the impact of the ruling on the right to free expression and the right to obtain information in the EU? • What companies might be subject to the ECJ’s ruling? • How will the ECJ ruling work in application? • What risks will companies run if they are unable to fully comply with the “right to be forgotten?” Right To Be Forgotten Is Now a Reality: A Brief Timeline of the EU High Court Ruling. May 15, 2014 By Jedidiah Bracy, CIPP/US, CIPP/E This week’s historic ruling by the European Court of Justice has sent ripples throughout the world and has garnered wide-ranging reaction from regulators, businesses and privacy experts from both sides of the Atlantic.
On Tuesday, the court ruled that Google must delete links to personal information when an individual requests it. By Wednesday, commentary by the U.S. tech industry and EU regulators began rolling in, and on Thursday, Reuters reported that Google was already receiving takedown requests. Below is a truncated timeline of the week’s events and reactions. Tuesday, 13 May In a reversal of a preliminary ruling in June 2013 by Advocate General Niilo Jääskinen, the court ruled that Google must provide users, in certain instances, with a right to delete links about themselves, including, in some cases, public records. Wednesday, 14 May By the next day, more reaction resonated throughout the press on both sides of the Atlantic. Documents. Language of document : JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Grand Chamber) (Personal data — Protection of individuals with regard to the processing of such data — Directive 95/46/EC — Articles 2, 4, 12 and 14 — Material and territorial scope — Internet search engines — Processing of data contained on websites — Searching for, indexing and storage of such data — Responsibility of the operator of the search engine — Establishment on the territory of a Member State — Extent of that operator’s obligations and of the data subject’s rights — Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union — Articles 7 and 8) In Case C‑131/12, REQUEST for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU from the Audiencia Nacional (Spain), made by decision of 27 February 2012, received at the Court on 9 March 2012, in the proceedings Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), Mario Costeja González, THE COURT (Grand Chamber), composed of V.
Advocate General: N. Registrar: M. Gives the following ‘1. Does the Google data protection ruling mean anything copyright-wise? Earlier this week the Grand Chamber [this means 13 judges instead of the ordinary 3 or 5 judges] of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its shocking [yes, shocking] judgment in Case C-131/12 Google Spain and Google [press release available here] in which, contrary to the Opinion of Advocate General Jaaskinen [mentioned here], it ruled that: "[T]he activity of a search engine consisting in finding information published or placed on the internet by third parties, indexing it automatically, storing it temporarily and, finally, making it available to internet users according to a particular order of preference must be classified as ‘processing of personal data’ within the meaning of Article 2(b) [of the Data Protection Directive] when that information contains personal data and, second, the operator of the search engine must be regarded as the ‘controller’ in respect of that processing, within the meaning of Article 2(d).
" What does this mean? According to the Court, Top EU court backs ‘right to be forgotten’ in Google privacy case - V3.co.uk. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has issued a decision backing the so-called 'right to be forgotten' that would force search firms to remove links to results that are outdated or unwanted by individuals. The ECJ's decision in support of the so-called ‘right to be forgotten' issue means Google and other providers will have to remove search results that infringe on an individual's privacy. In its decision, the ECJ said that Google and other search providers should act to remove links when requested and could be coerced into doing so by the authorities if they resist initial applications for change (PDF). The case was brought by a Spanish man who claimed that an auction notice of his repossessed home returned by a Google search was an infringement on his privacy. Google told V3 it was disappointed by the decision and would consider its response.
"This is a disappointing ruling for search engines and online publishers in general," said a Google spokesperson. The CJEU's Google Spain decision: a right to be forgotten within the limits of the freedom of expression. In its ruling of May 13, 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) holds that: Concerning this last point, the court also links these rights to the right to "privacy" and insists that, in certain occurrences, the right of erasure or the right to object would be ineffective when the balance of interest between freedom of expression and privacy favors freedom of expression.
In other words, the CJEU invoked the existing case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which in a number of cases already has balanced the tensions that may exist between freedom of expression and privacy. EU court says Google must delete search results. In a landmark case for the future of digital privacy, Europe’s highest court ruled today that internet search behemoths, such as Google, can be required to block access to search results about individuals at their request. The ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja Gonzálezhas the potential to drastically alter the privacy landscape.
It will allow individuals to assert their right under EU data protection law to require search engines to rectify, erase or block access to search results about them where these are incomplete, inaccurate, irrelevant or outdated or otherwise breach EU data protection law, whether or not they cause prejudice to the individual. It is further evidence that as individuals look to alternative ways to protect their privacy and their reputations in an online world, data protection is now leading the way. European Court of Justice issues judgment on right to erasure under EU data protection rules. Following the referral of a series of questions from the Spanish National High Court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled earlier this week that individuals have a right to ask search engines to remove links containing personal data about them, if the information about the individual is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”.
The case concerned a complaint by a Spanish national about the results produced when his name was entered in Google’s search engine. The search results displayed a link to a newspaper article, from 1998, giving information about legal proceedings for the recovery of the complainant’s debts. The case has potentially far reaching implications both for businesses processing personal data and individuals seeking to exercise their rights.
The ECJ held the following: Territorial scope - Google is subject to EU data protection laws for its search engine business. Potential Implications of the Decision The decision has already polarized opinion. News: Google v Spain, landmark ECJ decision in relation to freedom of expression and the right to be forgotten – Lorna Woods. The ECJ today handed down a case in a landmark decision regarding data protection and the Internet (Case C-131/12 Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González). The case concerns the EU Data Protection Directive (DPD) which establishes a system which controls the way in which data processing in the EU is carried out, giving the data subjects certain rights to correct data and to object to it.
As well as issues as to the meaning of these rights, this case raises important questions about the scope of the directive – in terms of geography (its impact on non-EU resident processors) and in terms of the activities caught by it (what is processing and who is a ‘controller’). The facts of the case are simple. A newspaper published a notice of auction in respect of the property of Mario Costeja González for unpaid debts. He subsequently paid the debts and the property was not auctioned. Like this: Like Loading... Google Gets Spanish Court Order to Cut Search Links on Privacy. A Spanish court ruled that Google Inc. (GOOG) must remove links from a search on a man’s name, eight months after the case made a European Union court confirm a so-called “right to be forgotten” on the Internet.
Google must cut the link to a notice on social security debtors in La Vanguardia newspaper because it was outdated information about the man, the Audencia Nacional ruled, according to a statement on its website Friday in Spain. Freedom of information rights aren’t infringed because the original content is still available in the newspaper’s online archive, it said. Google’s refusal to remove a link to a 1998 newspaper notice on a search of Mario Costeja Gonzalez’s name pitched the operator of the world’s largest search engine against Spain’s data-protection authority. The European Court of Justice backed the privacy regulator last year, saying all search engines should cut links on request if the information is outdated and irrelevant. Press spacebar to pause and continue.
Privacy This Week | News Alerts. The National Court of Spain referred a question - on 2 March 2012 - to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), seeking a preliminary ruling on whether individuals have the right to request a search engine to remove data related to them published on the internet and stored by third parties, from the search engine's index and search results. The case - Google Spain v Spanish Data Protection Authority (AEPD) - concerned the AEPD granting a petition to a complaint requesting that Google remove data of the complainant from Google's index and search results. The data related to a newspaper advertisement of an auction of a property for non-payment of social security.
The advertisement was linked to the complainant's name and the complainant claimed that the embargo had been resolved years ago. Rafael García del Poyo, Partner at Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo, said: ''Google maintains that it cannot lawfully remove any content for which it is merely the host and not the producer. Europe’s highest court says people have ‘the right to be forgotten.’ But online, forgetting doesn’t exist. There are lots of ways to think about Tuesday’s surprise European court decision, which ruled that search engines must remove unflattering Google results on an individual’s request. It’s a thorny legal issue, with plenty of ripples for freedom of information and the press. It’s a business and logistical headache for search engines like Google, who now have to figure out how to carry out the court’s ruling. Most intriguingly for our purposes, it’s a conceptual puzzle, of sorts: Europe’s Court of Justice is calling this “the right to be forgotten,” without saying what — or who — is actually doing the forgetting.
And that passive construction is really interesting. Presumably, when the court refers to memory in this way, it’s talking about the search engines themselves: They have to take the results down — they, in effect, have to “forget.” But that frame conveniently skirts two very important realities about how memory and the Internet work.