Battle to enforce ‘right to be forgotten’ online

PLANS to give people a new “right to be forgotten” online by erasing historic social media posts will be “very difficult” to implement because companies collect so much information, an expert says.

The Government yesterday announced plans to give users of Facebook and other social networking companies the right to wipe clean all photographs, messages and information they put online.

It follows concerns that people’s career prospects are being damaged by comments that they made on social media sites as teenagers.

Emma Taylor, the editor of the Journal of Cyber Policy, also warned that people’s data had an “afterlife” and was being “collected, processed and farmed” by advertisers.

She told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: “Although the powers have been increased it really remains to be seen how it will be implemented. Most people just click ‘I agree’.”

Ms Taylor warned: “It’s hard to untangle bits of data.”