Hard to Forget: Lords, and Google, Question EU Ruling

In the UK, a House of Lords committee has reported that the ECJ's search engine 'right to be forgotten' ruling is 'unworkable' and says it is 'wrong in principle'; while Google has told the EU that implementing it is a hard task, and has asked for clarification on how it should decide cases.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ruled in May that search engines with offices in the EU must consider requests from individuals for the removal of links to certain information about them. Within a month, Google reported that it was receiving about 10,000 requests for removal each day.

In a recent letter to an EU data protection committee, Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said the search engine had received more than 91,000 requests by July 18th to delete a combined total of 328,000 links under the ruling. France and Germany topped the ranking with c.17,500 and 16,500 requests respectively; and the other big EU nations are not far behind (Britain 12,000, Spain 8,000 and Italy 7,500).

Google said it had agreed to remove some 53% of the links requested, but that invariably it was working with partial information in judging whether issues of personal privacy outweighed considerations of public interest. Decisions have to be made based on information provided by the person requesting removal in most cases, and this information may be partial, or outright false: 'Even if requesters provide us with accurate information, they understandably may avoid presenting facts that are not in their favor', said Fleischer, taking the opportunity to ask for the EU's input on deciding what was in the public interest.


The Lords' view, expressed in a report by the Home Affairs, Health and Education EU Sub-Committee, reinforces the objection to search engines having to make the decisions, from a slightly different angle. Committee Chair Baroness Prashar said the judgement was 'unworkable', partly because 'it is wrong in principle to leave search engines themselves the task of deciding whether to delete information or not, based on vague, ambiguous and unhelpful criteria... We heard from witnesses how uncomfortable they are with the idea of a commercial company sitting in judgment on issues like that.' Baroness Prashar continued: 'We think there is a very strong argument that, in the new regulation, search engines should not be classed as data controllers, and therefore not liable as 'owners' of the information they are linking to. We also do not believe that individuals should have a right to have links to accurate and lawfully available information about them removed, simply because they do not like what is said.'

Justice Minister Simon Hughes summed up the UK's position in response, saying: 'The Government wants to protect privacy rights and freedom of speech while taking action to bolster economic growth. Our greatest challenge is getting that balance right... I agree that it is neither accurate nor helpful to say that the recent judgment of the European Court of Justice has given a right to be forgotten. We need to be clear that the judgment does not give individuals an unfettered right to have their personal data deleted from search engine results.'

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.