An Individual's Quest to Always Be Remembered: A Critical Approach to the Right to Be Forgotten in the European Data Protection Directive

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joss M. Baao
Keyword(s):  
Data Protection ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
European Data ◽  
Right To Be Forgotten ◽  
Data Protection Directive ◽  
The Right

scholarly journals Right to be forgotten: european data imperialism, national privilege, or universal human right?

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-152
Author(s):  
Oskar J. Gstrein
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
European Court Of Justice ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
European Data ◽  
Right To Be Forgotten ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Right

The Digital Age has fundamentally reshaped the preconditions for privacy and freedom of expression. This transpires in the debate about a "right to be forgotten". While the 2014 decision of the European Court of Justice in "Google Spain" touches upon the underlying issue of how increasing amounts of personal data affects individuals over time, the topic has also become one of the salient problems of Internet Governance. On 24th September 2019 the European Court of Justice delivered its judgment in "Google vs CNIL" (C-507/17) which was supposed to clarify the territorial scope of the right. However, this judgment has raised doubts about the enforceability of the General Data Protection Regulation, and reveals the complex, multi-layered governance structure of the European Union. Acknowledging such complexity at a substantive and institutional level, this article starts by analysing the judgment. Additionally, to better understand the current situation in the European Union and its member states, recently produced draft guidelines by the European Data Protection Board are presented and discussed, as well as two judgments of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Subsequently, the European developments are put in international context. Finally, the insights from these sections are combined which allows to develop several conceptual ideas. In conclusion, it is argued that the right to be forgotten remains complex and evolving. Its success depends on effective multi-layer and multistakeholder interaction. In this sense, it has become a prominent study object that reveals potential venues and pitfalls on a path towards more sophisticated data protection frameworks.

scholarly journals The Right to Be Forgotten in the Digital Age: The Challenges of Data Protection Beyond Borders

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (S1) ◽  
pp. 55-65
Author(s):  
Federico Fabbrini ◽  
Edoardo Celeste
Keyword(s):  
Data Protection ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
High Data ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Right To Be Forgotten ◽  
High Standards ◽  
Democratic Systems ◽  
The Right

AbstractThis article explores the challenges of the extraterritorial application of the right to be forgotten and, more broadly, of EU data protection law in light of the recent case law of the ECJ. The paper explains that there are good arguments for the EU to apply its high data protection standards outside its borders, but that such an extraterritorial application faces challenges, as it may clash with duties of international comity, legal diversity, or contrasting rulings delivered by courts in other jurisdictions. As the article points out from a comparative perspective, the protection of privacy in the digital age increasingly exposes a tension between efforts by legal systems to impose their high standards of data protection outside their borders – a dynamic which could be regarded as ‘imperialist’ – and claims by other legal systems to assert their own power over data – a dynamic which one could name ‘sovereigntist’. As the article suggests, navigating between the Scylla of imperialism and the Charybdis of sovereigntism will not be an easy task. In this context, greater convergence in the data protection framework of liberal democratic systems worldwide appears as the preferable path to secure privacy in the digital age.

scholarly journals Revision of the European Data Protection Directive: opportunity or threat for public health monitoring?

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 684-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Carinci ◽  
C. T. Di Iorio ◽  
W. Ricciardi ◽  
N. Klazinga ◽  
M. Verschuuren
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Monitoring ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Public Health Monitoring ◽  
European Data ◽  
Data Protection Directive

The Right To Be Forgotten

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward L. Carter
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Data Protection ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
Freedom Of Expression ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Legal Concept ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Right To Be Forgotten ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Eu

The right to be forgotten is an emerging legal concept allowing individuals control over their online identities by demanding that Internet search engines remove certain results. The right has been supported by the European Court of Justice, some judges in Argentina, and data-protection regulators in several European countries, among others. The right is primarily grounded in notions of privacy and data protection but also relates to intellectual property, reputation, and right of publicity. Scholars and courts cite, as an intellectual if not legal root for the right to be forgotten, the legal principle that convicted criminals whose sentences are completed should not continually be publicly linked with their crimes. Critics contend that the right to be forgotten stands in conflict with freedom of expression and can lead to revisionist history. Scholars and others in the southern cone of South America, in particular, have decried the right to be forgotten because it could allow perpetrators of mass human rights abuses to cover up or obscure their atrocities. On the other hand, those in favor of the right to be forgotten say that digital technology preserves memory unnaturally and can impede forgiveness and individual progress. The right to be forgotten debate is far from resolved and poses difficult questions about access to, and control of, large amounts of digital information across national borders. Given the global nature of the Internet and the ubiquity of certain powerful search engines, the questions at issue are universal, but solutions thus far have been piecemeal. Although a 2014 decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) garnered much attention, the right to be forgotten has been largely shaped by a 1995 European Union Directive on Data Protection. In 2016, the EU adopted a new General Data Protection Regulation that will take effect in 2018 and could have a major impact because it contains an explicit right to be forgotten (also called right to erasure). The new regulation does not focus on the theoretical or philosophical justification for a right to be forgotten, and it appears likely the debate over the right in the EU and beyond will not be resolved even when the new rule takes effect.

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