On 13 May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its much-awaited decision in Google Spain SL, Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Mario Costeja González. The Court held that a search engine operator is responsible for the processing of personal data which appear on web pages published by third parties.
The upshot of this is that anyone whose personal information appears as a result of a search query may approach Google or other search engine and ask them to remove the links at issue even though the publication of the information itself may have been perfectly lawful in the first place. If it appears that the information is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”, it will have to be erased. The data subject will not be required to show any harm or prejudice as a result of the information being made available through search.
The implications of the Court’s judgement for free expression are profoundly worrying. Although the Court was interpreting a data protection measure rather than some outright restriction on free speech, the Court failed to even mention the right to freedom of expression and information underArticle 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Indeed, it essentially relegated the right to freedom of expression to a mere “interest” of the general public in “finding information”, which as a “general rule” was overridden by the “rights” of the data subject under Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter (i.e. the rights to privacy and protection of personal data). True, the Court allowed for a public interest test in finding personal information in certain circumstances, “such as the role played by the data subject in public life”. However, this was expressed as a limited exclusion, rather than a right to be properly balanced with the right to privacy, as the Advocate General did in its Opinion in the case.
Even more disturbingly, the Court’s judgment is likely to have a significant chilling effect on freedom of expression. Giving the obvious practical difficulties of Google undertaking an individualised assessment of each request for removal and the sheer volume of potential requests (which could easily run into the millions within a very short time), it will always be easier for search providers to simply remove material without any assessment whatsoever for fear of being found in breach of its data protection obligations. Once again, search engines will be put in the position of private censors of the Internet. Even if the Googles of this world were to stand up for the free speech rights of their users, “supervisory authorities” would still be laden with far-reaching powers to effectively remove perfectly lawful information from the internet.
In this regard, the Court entirely ignored the warning of its Advocate General who had found that internet users’ right to information would be compromised if searches for information concerning an individual did not generate search results providing “a truthful reflection of the relevant web pages but a bowdlerised version therof”.
The judgment also raises several questions regarding its implementation: how is it effective for Google to remove personal information if the information otherwise remains available on a third-party website? What about the obligations of other search engines or those which are not established in the EU for the purposes of the Directive? If search engines cannot hold the personal information of third parties for any longer than necessary for their business purposes, aren’t vast swathes of perfectly legitimate information going to disappear from the Internet?
No doubt the Court’s judgment was well-intentioned but it also poses a serious risk to freedom of expression online.
Gabrielle Guillemin is legal officer at ARTICLE 19, an international free speech organisation. She formerly worked as a lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights
This post originally appeared on the Article 19 website and is reproduced with permission and thanks
To read more about Article 19’s work on Internet Intermediaries click here
EU COURT OF JUSTICE RULING ON THE ‘RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN’ IS RIGHT.
The article by Gabrielle Guillemin is legal officer at ARTICLE 19 is extremely wrong, unbalanced, inhuman, life sentence and unjust for the following reasons:
Why should a person who had a photograph taken of them in an embarrassing situation as a teenager have that image haunt them for the rest of their life?
Why should something a person said or did casually but foolishly when they were twenty years of age affect their future prospects forever?
Why should a minor indiscretion be a continual thorn in a person’s side, in perpetuity?
What about forgiveness and rehabilitation? Most people are unlikely to be able to honestly claim that everything they have ever done or said in the lives would stand the test of scrutiny.
Does rehabilitation mean being faced constantly with public posters of your past mistakes for the rest of your lives?
Do you know the background of the person you are sitting next to on the plane, bus, train or walking down the road?
It is only the person who have made past mistakes and have paid the price through prison or maybe even fine knows the impact of their action.
There comes a time such records must not be constantly referred to and evidence show that continuation of public humiliation and harassment even encourages more crime and frustration. Any civilized society must know that and not allowed public hunting.
The EU Court of Justice must continue to protect people from the authoritative heavy arm of the state and people like media and lawyers with vested interest.
Edna Cantos – Rehabilitation Officer, working to remove barriers to those who have made mistakes in the past.