On the Search for an Adequate Scope of the Right to Be Forgotten

• Author: Rolf H. Weber
• Position: Professor of Civil, European and Commercial Law at the Law Department of the University of Zurich
• Pages: 2-10

2015

Rolf H. Weber

2

1

On the Search for an Adequate Scope

of the Right to Be Forgotten

by Rolf H. Weber* Professor of Civil, European and Commercial Law at the Law Department of the University of

Zurich

© 2015 Rolf H. Weber

Everybody may disseminate this ar ticle by electroni c means and make it available for downlo ad under the terms and

conditions of the Digita l Peer Publishing Licence (DPPL). A copy of the license text may be obtaine d at http://nbn-resolving.

de/urn:nbn:de:0009-dppl-v3-en8 .

Recommended citation: Rolf H. Web er, On the Search for an Adequate Scop e of the Right to Be Forgotten, 6 (2015) JIPITEC

2, para 1.

Keywords: Right to Be Forgotten; CJEU; Data Protection Regulation; Privacy; Freedom of Expression

a completely revised Data Protection Regulation

and has recently been acknowledged by the Court

of Justice of the European Union (“Google/Spain”

decision), to date, the discussions about the right

and especially its implementation with regard to the

fundamental right to freedom of expression have

remained rather vague and need to be examined in

more depth.

Abstract: During the last decades, the virtual

world increasingly gained importance and in this

context the enforcement of privacy rights became

more and more difficult. An important emanation

of this trend is the right to be forgotten enshrining

the protection of the data subject’s rights over

his/her “own” data. Even though the right to be

forgotten has been made part of the proposal for

A. History and Contents of the

Right to Be Forgotten

1 The “right to be forgotten” reects the claim of an

individual to have certain data deleted from the

Internet so that third persons can no longer trace

them. In contrast, the “right to forget” refers to

the already intensively reected situation that a

historical event should no longer be revitalized due

to the length of time elapsed since its occurrence.1

From a substantive perspective, the right to be

forgotten is based on the autonomy of an individual

becoming a right holder with respect to personal

information on a given time scale; the longer the

origin of the information goes back, the more likely

personal interests prevail over public interests.2

2 The right to be forgotten can play a role in different

situations depending on the circumstances and the

time aspects:3

• The purpose of the undertaken data processing

has been achieved and the respective data are not

to be stored or made available any longer. In this

situation, two generally accepted data protection

principles, namely the proportionality principle

and the purpose limitation principle in case of

data processing, justify the deletion of the data.

•

The processed data are on a decreasing

importance slope and their impacts are

“overruled” by persisting priorities of the

individual, i.e. private interests exceed public

interests.

• The importance of the processed data and their

respective impacts on the society are decreasing

due to changing priorities, i.e. the environment

inuences the (diminishing) justication of the

data storage.

3 The right to be forgotten can also be differentiated

according to possible compliance situations with the

legal framework:4