Do you still have the right to be forgotten?

The ‘right to be forgotten’ was introduced by the European Union in 2014 to allow people to ask for old, inaccurate or irrelevant data to be permanently removed from search results. The ruling applies to all search engines operating in the EU, but because Google is so dominant – it performs around 90 per cent of all searches in Europe - it has been most affected and has received millions of requests to remove URLS from its search results.

In 2019, Google won a court case against a French privacy regulator that tried to extend the right to be forgotten globally, but now the UK has left the EU, you may wonder whether the law still applies to us.

The answer is that it does, because a ‘right to erasure’ is enshrined in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules, which were absorbed into UK law as part of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 ( www.snipca.com/39630). Prior to Brexit, right-to-be-forgotten applications were processed by Google Ireland, but they’re now handled in California – otherwise the rules remain the same.

According to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) the right to erasure is just another name for the right to be forgotten, and lets any individual request the removal of their personal data (see www.snipca.com/39598). Companies including Google must respond to such requests within one month, and tell you whether your data has been erased or the request refused.

Google’s online form for requesting the removal of your personal information ( www.snipca.com/39597) still lists the United Kingdom alongside EU countries (see screenshot), confirming that Brexit hasn’t affected our right to be forgotten.