Court Rules ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Can Only Apply in The EU

The Right to Be Forgotten became a ruling in 2014 and allows the users to demand search engines certain information about them that can be either embarrassing or out of date, to be deleted. 

However, this ruling only now officially applies in the EU. In a big win for Google, the Court of Justice of the European Union has agreed that the tech giant does not have to apply the same standard of privacy worldwide. Hence, the ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ may not extend to any other versions of its search engine outside Europe. 

Google agreed to remove the links, when requested, but while they will not appear in a search from say, Italy, they will still appear in the U.S version of the search engine. 

France’s data protection watchdog expected Google to apply the 2014 ruling globally and even fined the company with a fine of 100,000 Euro ($110,000). It was this case that Google appealed and eventually won. 

The company argued that if the ruling was to be applied outside Europe, it might lead to abuse by authoritarian governments who try to cover up human rights maltreatment. Google maintains that there should be a balance between what is considered to be sensitive personal data and information that is of public interest. 

“The Court concludes that, currently, there is no obligation under EU law, for a search engine operator who grants a request for de-referencing made by a data subject… to carry out such a de-referencing on all the versions of its search engine,” the ruling states. 

Needless to say, Google was delighted as, according to a press release from Peter Fleischer, senior privacy counsel for Google, the company has “worked hard to implement the right to be forgotten in Europe, and to strike a sensible balance between people’s rights of access to information and privacy.”

“It’s good to see that the Court agreed with our arguments, and we’re grateful to the independent human rights organisations, media associations and many others around the world who also presented their views to the Court.” Fleischer added.