The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that search engine operators are responsible for the processing they carry out of personal information that appears on web pages published by third parties.
This means that a search engine operator could be required to remove search results and links to a page about an individual if that individual has said that he or she wants it deleted.
Called the “right to be forgotten”, which was first proposed as a law by the European Commission in 2012, the ruling was brought in the case of a Spanish man, who complained that an auction notice of his repossessed home on Google’s search results infringed his privacy.
He had seen that Google still published links to newspaper articles from 16 years earlier relating to money he owed at the time, which was now settled, so said it should no longer be in the public domain.
The Luxembourg court agreed with him, saying that people have the right to request information to be removed if it appeared to be “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant”. It also described the rights of the individual as “paramount” when it comes to their control over their personal data.
However, the ruling has huge implications for anyone who publishes material online about ordinary individuals, although it will not apply to people in the public eye, as there could be public interest defence in such cases.
Google, which has won at earlier stages in the legal process, is very disappointed by the ruling and could now be facing a flood of complaints about material it holds in its search engine.
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding welcomed the decision, however, saying that it was a clear victory for the protection of the personal data of Europeans.