Hi folks,
We're writing to highlight a decision that came out of the Court of Justice
of the European Union (CJEU) earlier this week about how the "right to be
de-referenced" (or "right to be forgotten") should be applied
geographically. The CJEU was asked to settle questions about the scope of
de-referencing orders after the French data protection authority, CNIL,
fined Google for failing to de-reference information about a French
national from all versions of its search engine. Google argued that it
should only be required to de-reference information within the European
Union, but that the information could remain on versions of the search
engine outside of the EU (i.e.
google.com). The Wikimedia Foundation is
concerned about the effects of de-referencing on fundamental rights like
freedom of expression and access to information, and submitted a
brief about these issues at both the national court and the CJEU. Now,
nearly a year after the final arguments before the CJEU, the court has
issued a ruling affirming Google's current practice of limiting
de-referencing only to users in the European Union. While we are excited
about this limitation, we are still concerned about the inequalities in
information created by any geographically limited de-referencing. If you'd
like more information about this decision, please check out our full write
up on the Wikimedia blog:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2019/09/24/do-europeans-have-a-right-t…
.
Best,
Allison
--
Allison Davenport (she/her)
Technology Law and Policy Fellow
Wikimedia Foundation
1 Montgomery Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
adavenport(a)wikimedia.org
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