Google seeks guidance on when to forget people

FORGETTING isn’t easy, especially when details are few and the guidelines on when personal privacy trumps public interest are murky, according to Google.

The world’s leading internet search engine told European officials on Thursday that by July 18 it had received more than 91 000 requests to delete altogether 328 000 links under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” ruling.

Most of the requests came from France (17 500) and Ger- many (16 500), according to a letter Google’s global privacy counsel, Peter Fleischer, sent to an EU data-protection committee.

Another 12 000 data removal requests came from Britain, 8 000 from Spain and 7 500 from Italy.

Google said that about 53% of the links targeted had been removed.

But the California-based internet titan said it was challenged by having to rely on those making removal requests for information needed to put them in perspective.

“Some requests turn out to be made with false and inaccurate information,” Fleischer said in the letter.

“Even if requesters provide us with accurate information, they understandably may avoid presenting facts that are not in their favour.”

For example, a person requesting the removal of links to information about a crime committed as a teenager might omit that he or she was convicted of similar crimes as an adult, or that he or she was a politician running for office.

Other requests might target a link to information about another person who happened to have the same name.

The 13-page letter contained replies to questions from a meeting last week between several internet search services and the group of EU data protection regulators.

Google took the opportunity to ask for input on how it should differentiate between what was in the public interest and what was not, and whether information posted online by governments could be “forgotten” at someone’s request.

Google has been working to balance freedom of information with privacy rights in the wake of a ruling in May by the European Court of Justice.

The court found that individuals had the right to have links to information about them deleted from searches in certain circumstances, such as if the data was outdated or inaccurate.

European news sites have opened fire on Google for removing links to stories from search results in compliance with the court order.

The links remain visible on Google.com, the US version of the site, but the restrictions appear to relate only to certain search terms, typically people’s names. —