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<p>The Government is continuing to assess the implications of the recent European
Court of Justice ruling on the ‘right to be forgotten’. However, it is important to
be clear that the ECJ judgment does not give individuals an unfettered right to have
their personal data deleted from search engine results.</p><p> </p><p>The Government
is conscious of the possible unintended consequences of the judgment, such as the
administrative burdens for search engines in complying with the judgment, a potential
increase in caseload for the Information Commissioner’s Office in responding to complaints
and ultimately the volume of cases that may end up in the Tribunal on appeal.</p><p>
</p><p>With this in mind, the Government welcomes the work being undertaken by the
Committee of European data protection authorities to develop criteria to be used by
search engine operators to consider requests for deletion. The guidance issued by
this Committee will be of vital importance to search engines operators in striking
the right balance between the privacy rights of individuals and other interests, including
the public interest in retaining the information. Therefore as well as supporting
search engine operators with the practical application of the ruling, the Government
considers this guidance is the right mechanism for clarifying the rights and obligations
provided by this judgment.</p><p> </p><p>At the same time negotiations on a replacement
General Data Protection Regulation are ongoing in the Council of the EU, including
on proposed provisions which are in shorthand called the ‘right to be forgotten’ provisions.
The Government does not support the ‘right to be forgotten’ as proposed by the European
Commission. It is not technologically possible to remove all trace of data uploaded
on the internet and we should be mindful of setting unrealistic expectations for data
subjects which do not exist in practice. The Government also consider that an obligation
to inform other controllers of a request under the so called ‘right to be forgotten’
should be made clearer and more realistic. Therefore, we will continue to make the
case for greater clarity and a more proportionate approach to this measure.</p><p>
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