A collection of issued ( and to come) courts’ decisions in Europe
France ( and Europe ?) has its eyes on its highest court : « Conseil d’Etat » in 2017.
Google has appealed against French’s Data Privacy Authority , CNIL, to overturn its ruling to apply search results ruling to ALL of its domains ( ie not only to EU domains for European concerns) ; ie also the « US.com ».
CNIL had argued that the global filtering is the only way to fully enforce ( that is according to ECJ’s Google decision of 2014) the right to be forgotten. Google holds against that data protection law in France and around the EU is territorial. It has since 2016 ( first decision in the litigation) removed , whenever the search term, ie the name of the concerned party, came up, from all EU domains, so that the search term cannot be seen by anyone in a EU country, independently from whatever version of Google they search on. Google argues that the order as claimed by the CNIL « could lead to global race , harming access to information that is lawful to view in one’s own contry. »
Remember 2014? In 2014 the ECJ sentenced Google, c.131/12 (in order to preserve data protection rules ), « to remove links to pages that appear to be inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant or excessive.. in the light of the time that has elapsed « .
« Individuals must show/ proof that the information is no longer relevant .«
ECJ did not enlarge to what domains it extended its decision. Which raises the question of territoriality of EU data protection rules . In light of the up coming entering into force of the GDPR ( containing expressly the right to be forgotten) the French decision may be seen as an interpretation of the future GDPR.
UK
Back in 2015 ICO ( « Information Commissioner’s Office », ie the UK Data Protection authority) had ordered to Google to remove search result links to news stories about the right to be forgotten link removals.
Nine links to current news stories about older ( criminal offence by an individual) reports spurred new posts, and thus « invalidated » the previous deleted information as to the personal data. Google refused to remove links to these later news posts, which included details of the original criminal offence, despite them forming part of search results for the claimant’s name, arguing that they are an essential part of a recent news story and in the public interest.
ICO gave Google 35 days from the decision to remove the links from its search results for the claimant’s name.
Italy
« Primadanoi », (C13161/16)
The highest court ( Corte di Cassazione) in Italy upheld in a 2016 ruling that, after a period of two years, an article in an online news archive had expired.
The supreme court followed its reasoning in concluding: “The time passed between the date the article was first published and the date when its removal was requested, sufficed to satisfy the public interest as far as its right to be informed was concerned, and that therefore, at least from the date when the formal notice was received, that data could no longer be disclosed.”
The decision obtained the label : Just like yoghurts and other perishable goods : two years for on –line information before it has expires ».
Belgium
« Le Soir » / daily newspaper/ C15,00052.F
In 2016 the Belgian Superior Court ordered « Le Soir », a Belgian daily newspaper, to modify an article ( revealing the individual’s name) in the on-line version of the original report of 22 years old. « Le Soir » was to anonymize the individual’s name in the on-line version of the original report. The main argument underlying the Belgian decision was that the inclusion of an old article in the newspaper’s online archives could be considered as a new disclosure of facts regarding the mentioned individual’s judicial past. The Court thus decided that the right to be forgotten expressed by the claimant justifies the limitation of the right to freedom of expression from « Le Soir ».
2017 will bring more decisons and precisions as to the Right to be forgotten, as the date of GDPR implementation gets nearer.