Don’t Free Citizens Need The Right To Be Forgotten?

Last night saw the inaugural debate of the new Legal Debate Series organised by Thomson Reuters. It was a timely discussion around the highly contentious issue of an individual's right to control their own digital footprint and legacy. On May 13 2014 the ECJ backed the 'Right to be forgotten' and ruled that individuals can request that Google and other search engines remove links to 'inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant personal data'. The blurb continued, 'the implications for search engines, social media operators and in fact, any business with EU operations are huge'. Having already written about litigation and data protection, I was interested to hear if anything new could be brought to the debate.

Data Protection: A Litigation View

Data protection is normally presented from a risk/compliance point of view and, indeed, it is an essential part of a firm's responsibility to their clients. Information professionals should be involved with these compliance duties and be familiar with processes and principles. However, what about the litigation point of view? Yesterday David Glen of 1 Brick Court took us though some recent legal developments but any errors in law or omissions in sense are all mine!

Background
 

The Data Protection Act 1998 was formed out of the EU Data Protection Directive (also known as Directive 95/46/EC). For the first decade of its existence, it caused a stir as a new area of law but then, litigation-wise, essentially discarded. Data protection has been seen as a secondary cause, offering a peripheral remedy after remedies that libel and misuse of information offer.

David believed that this is shifting and we will be seeing a change in the future. He suggested that people are far more aware of their personal data protection rights because of increased discussion in the press. The increased willingness of the judiciary to apply the data protection thresholds is also key; Tugendhat J. has turned it into a radical issue. The final case (below) that he discussed applies the DPA's already broad issue of fairness in an even wider way.