Hughes: No 'right to be forgotten'

UK justice minister Simon Hughes has dismissed the European “right to be forgotten” law, claiming it is technically unenforceable and will lead to thousands of misconceived complaints.
The recent European Court of Justice ruling has already led to Google receiving over 70,000 requests to delete links from search results, and sparked a row over whether it is deliberately targeting some media companies to gather their support.
But Liberal Democrat told the Lords’ Home Affairs committee that the Government is not in favour of restricting information, and will fight on against the proposed EU General Data Protection Regulation which will reinforce the ECJ ruling.
Hughes said: “The Government is concerned. We would not want what is currently in the draft [ie the right to be forgotten]. We think it’s the wrong position. I don’t think we want the law to develop in the way that is implied by the ECJ judgment, which is that you close down access to information in the EU which is open in the rest of the world. We do not agree with the present text.”
He added: “If politicians think they can delete findings about their expenses, that’s not going to … [happen]. If people think they can delete their criminal history, it won’t occur. It’s not in the public interest. I hope we can discourage a lot of people.”
With the Information Commissioner’s Office yet to issue guidance on the decision, Hughes acknowledged that thousands of requests had been made to the ICO since the judgment, the result of which, he said, had been “unexpected”.
He said: “There is no right given by the judgment for people to have their personal data deleted from the search engine results. There is no unfettered right. There is no right to be forgotten. Not in the law of the UK, not in directives, not in the judgments of the court.”
Hughes added: “It looks to me as if it may be an unmanageable task. It will be a phenomenal task. It’s not technically possible to remove all traces of data loaded on to the Internet from other sources. You can’t exercise the right to be forgotten. The information system could not be made to do it.”
Earlier this year, Hughes pledged that the UK would fight to the bitter end against the proposed reforms of EU data protection laws, maintaining it is crucial that they do not burden SMEs.

Hughes: No ‘right to be forgotten’

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