The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Right To Be Forgotten Simon Hughes Google

Lib Dem justice minister asserts that there is no ‘right to be forgotten’

Author

By John Glenday, Reporter

July 9, 2014 | 2 min read

Liberal Democrat justice minister Simon Hughes has weighed into the ongoing row over the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’, by declaring that there is no such thing.

According to The Telegraph Hughes is expected to tell a House of Lords committee later today that individuals do not have an ‘unfettered’ right to ask search firms such as Google to remove links to specific websites as a result of a European Court ruling in May.

This gave European citizens the right to request the de-indexing of content deemed to be ‘inadequate’, ‘irrelevant’ or ‘no longer relevant’, a ruling which initiated howls of protest from free speech advocates.

They fear that the law will merely give criminals and dodgy politicians free reign to hide their shady past. Seeking to assuage those fears Hughes agrees that, in many cases, there is a public interest in keeping content online and promising to balance the right to privacy with freedom of speech.

Since the ruling was made Google has been deluged with over 70,000 requests to remove contentious links, a figure which is rising by an estimated 1,000 a day – each of which must be analysed by Google’s legal team to see whether it meets the criteria for removal.

This effectively removes the data from the internet although the material will still be accessible for those who have a direct link.

Right To Be Forgotten Simon Hughes Google

More from Right To Be Forgotten

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +