Europe is facing the challenges of implementing the European Court of Justice’s recent decision in the Costeja case, C-131/12 and its “right to be forgotten”.
Following the decision, search engines were submerged by requests for removal (see article) and were left with the difficult task of balancing the public right to information and the private right to privacy.
In order to discuss this delicate balance several initiatives are taking place in Europe.
On one hand search engines, applying the decision to individual cases, are looking for inputs. Google is holding a series of meetings in Europe. Meetings are public and open for registration. More information here. Listen here for example to the recording of the Advisory Council’s meeting held in Rome 9 September 2014.
On the other end, Article 29 Working Party is working on guidelines for appeals from people whose requests to remove information from search results under their name have been turned down by search engines.
The European data protection authorities agreed on a common ‘tool-box’ to ensure a coordinated approach to the handling of complaints resulting from search engines’ refusals to “de-list” complainants from their results. There will be a network of dedicated contact persons to develop common case-handling criteria to deal with complaints by the data protection authorities). The network will provide the authorities with: (i) a common record of decisions taken on complaints and; (ii) a dashboard to help identify similar cases as well as new or more difficult cases.
Article 29WP Press Release is available at http://ec.europa.eu…
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