Week 11 – Issues Surrounding "the Right to be Forgotten"

This week, Muge Fazlioglu’s discussion of how "the right to be forgotten" presents potential consequences for  public expression as well as people’s acquisition of information captured my attention. We live in an age where in order to make any use of the Internet we must dish out some of our personal information, often more than we would like to. It would certainly be nice, as users, to have the power to require data controllers to delete personal information or data that we no longer want them to have. Fazlioglu believes that "the right to be forgotten" affects individuals’ free speech or expression. However, Internet users are not permitted to practice the right when personal information is utilized for journalism or other artistic means of expression. Therefore, is individuals’ ability to express themselves really an issue here? Furthermore, Fazlioglu discusses the negative effects of "the right to be forgotten" on information availability for the public. While Internet users’ practice of this right may cause a slight decrease in the amount of information readily accessible to the public, I feel that in most cases this will not be detrimental to the public as there would likely still be a superabundance of information available on the web. However, there are certain cases where we can question whether information availability is more important than "the right to be forgotten", such as when health professionals have information deleted in an attempt to preserve their status or reputation.

References

Fazlioglu, Muge (2013). Forget me not: the clash of the right to be forgotten and freedom of expression on the Internet. International Data Privacy Law 3(3): 149-157.

- Alicja