Google faces privacy trials in U.K.

Two cases in London cite EU ‘right to be forgotten’ principle.

Google is set for its first battle in a London court over the so-called “right to be forgotten” in two cases that will test the boundaries between personal privacy and public interest.

Two anonymous people, who describe themselves in court filings as businessmen, want the search engine to take down links to information about their old convictions.

One of the men had been found guilty of conspiracy to account falsely and the other of conspiracy to intercept communications, Judge Matthew Nicklin said at a pretrial hearing Thursday. Those convictions are old and are now covered by an English law — designed to rehabilitate offenders — that says they can effectively be ignored. With a few exceptions, they don’t have to be disclosed to potential employers.

“This is the first time that the English court is going to decide the issue of the right to be forgotten,” Nicklin said.

The search-engine giant has already become embroiled in battles at the European Union’s top court over the right to be forgotten. The principle — created by the EU’s highest court in a precedent-setting ruling in May 2014 — allows people to ask for links to online information about them to be removed from search results if it’s outdated or irrelevant.

The ruling is only valid in the 28-nation bloc, but Google has clashed with privacy regulators over attempts to apply it beyond the EU.

“We work hard to comply with the right to be forgotten, but we take great care not to remove search results that are clearly in the public interest and will defend the public’s right to access lawful information,” a Google spokeswoman said.

Nicklin said Thursday that while the two cases were not related, they raised the same legal issues. The first trial, in which the person challenging Google to remove information is known as NT1, will start Feb. 27. The second, in which the plaintiff is known as NT2, will start on March 13. Nicklin said the plaintiffs weren’t celebrities or politicians and have been “rehabilitated” since their convictions.

NT1 has been threatened in public places by people referring to the content that Google links to, “and seeking to extract money from him in consequence,” his court filings say.

NT2’s papers say some financial institutions are unwilling to deal with him “on private or commercial business” after looking him up on Google.