{"id":262,"date":"2014-10-31T16:46:54","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T16:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/?p=262"},"modified":"2014-10-31T16:46:54","modified_gmt":"2014-10-31T16:46:54","slug":"the-right-to-be-forgotten","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/2014\/10\/31\/the-right-to-be-forgotten\/","title":{"rendered":"The right to be forgotten: what does your name say about you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As it is reading week at KLS I thought I would reflect on a topic that I have been reading about recently.<\/em><\/p>\n

Everyone has said or done something that they wish they could \u2018take back\u2019.\u00a0 Most of the time people do forget and the information does not follow you around.\u00a0 However, the way that we communicate has irreversibly changed in the digital age. \u00a0Our photos are no longer safely tucked away in an album in the loft.\u00a0 They are online<\/a> and they are tagged with your name and your location. \u00a0Our inner thoughts are no longer contained in diaries, they are on blogs that are visible to everyone.\u00a0 To find a newspaper article we no longer have to trawl through archives in our local library. \u00a0Newspapers publish their articles online \u2013 we do not even have to leave the house. On the one hand we should celebrate these changes.\u00a0 \u2018The Family Encyclopaedia of Medicine and Health\u2019 remains on my family\u2019s bookshelf but this process of disseminating information has largely been eradicated. \u00a0With a simple click of a button we have access to more information than we could have ever envisaged in the pre-digital age. \u00a0Is there such a thing as too much information?<\/p>\n

In May of this year, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) sought to clarify whether an individual had a \u2018right to be forgotten\u2019<\/a>.\u00a0 They stated that individuals have the right to request that search engines remove links upon searching their name if the information linked to is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive.\u00a0 This right must be balanced against the public\u2019s right to access information and all decisions require a case-by-case assessment.\u00a0 Is this a victory<\/a> for the individual\u2019s right to privacy?\u00a0Or is it a form of censorship <\/a>with damaging consequences for our right to access information? \u00a0These are not easy questions and it is not my intention to answer them.\u00a0 Instead I want to ask, what is in a name? I googled myself and found links to information about the university I went to, my involvement in local church events and my address.\u00a0 I do not mind if people know this, but what if I had a previous criminal conviction?\u00a0 What if I had been the victim of a crime?\u00a0 What if I had financial difficulties in the past?<\/p>\n

It is one thing to say that the public has a right to know this information.\u00a0 It is another to say that this is the first thing that they should know about me or that they should be able to find it out within a second of clicking a button.\u00a0 I would not think to introduce myself to potential friends or employers as \u201cHi, I\u2019m Jess and six years ago I bit my ex partner\u2019s ear off.\u201d\u00a0 As a result of the role of search engines in disseminating information\u00a0this is the reality for some people<\/a>.\u00a0We no longer have to ask people questions to find information out about them, we just google them.\u00a0 Indeed, it says a lot about the power of search engines that \u2018google\u2019 is now a recognised verb in the Oxford English Dictionary.<\/a><\/p>\n

Our information now does follow us around wherever we go and it will remain in the public eye forever.\u00a0 Society\u2019s right to remember has never been stronger and it has having severe consequences for individuals who want to forget.\u00a0 We do not want Google to become the Ministry of Truth<\/a> but are we willing to sacrifice our right to privacy?\u00a0 Does the CJEU ruling have a chilling effect on the freedom of expression or is it more chilling that the digital age is eroding the individual’s right to privacy and control of personal information?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As it is reading week at KLS I thought I would reflect on a topic that I have been reading about recently. Everyone has said … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39649,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262\/revisions\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/klsllm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}