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Google and the Right to Be Forgotten

Advocate trainee Katarzyna Dąbrowska took part in a public meeting of the Advisory Council to Google on the Right to be Forgotten. Google set up the Council in order to find an appropriate solution to implement the judgment of 13 May 2014 of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) (Case no. C-131/12).

CJEU’s judgment is revolutionary as it redefines the right to be forgotten, and yet again opens up the discussion on the right to privacy on the Internet. In its judgment, the CJEU obliged Google – as an operator of a search engine – to remove the links to web pages containing personal data of a particular individual from the search results. However, the CJEU noted that the removal from the search results should only concern the links to web pages which display information that was inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive in relation to the purposes of the processing, as well as information which was not kept up to date, or was kept for longer than necessary.

Apart from the capital of Poland, the Advisory Council to Google on the Right to be Forgotten has also conducted meetings in Madrid, Rome and Paris. The meeting in Warsaw gathered, among others, Edwin Bendyk (POLITYKA), Igor Ostrowski (Dentos Law Firm) and Dorota Głowacka (Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights).

During the meetings, the Advisory Council to Google is debating on how to set the criteria for removal of links. The matter is urgent considering that, according to David Drummond – Google’s Chief Legal Officer – as of 30 September 2014, Google has received 135 000 motions for removal.

A video from the meeting is available here.