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Comment by TomMarius | Hacker News Reader

I (an EU citizen) want to keep my right to think whatever I want about a criminal - and that includes looking at or keeping records. I feel like this 'right to be forgotten' hurts my safety - I don't want to forget that someone murdered someone or raped someone, these things are unforgettable and definitely unforgivable - and I want to know about them, and I want employers to be able to look them up.

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No one is getting murder or rape convictions removed from the record. This is considerably smaller scale stuff, and the story itself mentions that two men jointly fought to have news of their conviction removed, one who got 6 months in jail, and one who got 4 years, both non violent white collar type offenses, and only the guy who got 6 months actually won. The second guy lost.

Yes, treatment should be always the same - the records stay. Two things though - many thigs that are considered a crime shouldn't be a crime, and second, if the crime is minor or irrelevant, the record won't hurt the person, otherwise it's a proof that it's not as irrelevant as you think. For example in my country, you will get even parking offenses (repeated, but still) written in your record. It hurts nobody because nobody cares.

Agreed that any special divergence between types of crimes is wrong.

But I can get behind the use of judge discretion.

> if the crime is minor or irrelevant, the record won't hurt the person, otherwise it's a proof that it's not as irrelevant as you think

Let me tell you a little thing called marijuana possession charges and how they make students ineligible for student aid and government loans/grants. Even getting charged with possession of a single joint is enough to bar a student from receiving aid or loans. Such charges or convictions are the reason employers turn people away all of the time.

Yes, that's why I said that many things shouldn't be a crime.

>No one is getting murder or rape convictions removed from the record.

Story about German murderers suing to get their names removed from a Wikipedia article about the victim. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html?_r=0

But German courts ended up ruling against them.

It's almost as if judges aren't stupid.

Not a particularly good example considering the names are still on both the German and English language articles.

But your ability to do that may be directly infringing on the ex-convict's right to make a living or feel safe themselves

The GDPR does not apply to records kept for personal purposes. If you want to scour the web on a regular basis and write down all the names of criminals in a notebook, then you are still free to do so.

I don't care about personal purposes. I want employers to be able to look up their prospective employees.

Employers can already request that potential employees hand in a certificate from the authorities that they have no relevant convictions in Germany. (Führungszeugnis) All convictions past a statutory limit are not listed. There’s an extended version for especially sensitive positions (working with children, security sensitive positions,...) that lists convictions that are no longer part of the normal official limit.

That’s truly enough for employers.

"I feel like this 'right to be forgotten' hurts my safety"

A few years ago you had no such facility at all - how did you manage?

I was feeling less safe, that has improved. Why go back in time?

Because it hurts innocent people.

Is it possible that your feeling is entirely subjective and not backed by any statistics ?

Good thing we don't write law based on feelings. Were you _actually_ less safe? I highly doubt it.

If anything, you were probably feeling safer without being connected 24/7 to all the problems in the world. I'm really skeptical you were more afraid of strangers because you couldn't access public records about them.

No, I'm feeling safer because employers are able to look it up and thus make better decisions. It has nothing to do with me looking up random strangers.

Employers don't look up candidates on google, they look up criminal records with the authorities. It has nothing to do with the right to be forgotten. It was possible before, and it will be possible in the future.

I don't know where you live but here employers aren't allowed to look up things other than what is provided by the applicant anyway. Googling the name and using that for hiring decisions is simply illegal. Just ask all the relevant and legally allowed bits in your application process.

The "right to be forgotten" is the natural end-game in the positive rights charade.

Now you have a right to dictate what will be in someone else's mind.

Except you are not the justice system and it's not your call to choose who is bad or who is good.

Except that most people aren't removing those convictions. With your rigid midset you are punishing thousands of people who have been abused by social media and have done nothing wrong. Destroying their lives permanently.

Could you give me an example, please? I really can't think of a situation when a crime is so irrelevant that nobody cares (and thus the record isn't needed) and yet the record destroys lives (and that proves that people care, BTW) and thus must be deleted.

Low level dope fiend? Visiting a prostitute, or selling sex? I can think of a number of crimes, which are pretty much irrelevant for a character assessment.

Is google publishing articles about this? Or are they simply a card catalog? Want to be forgotten? Why not address the publisher of information and not merely the index of it?

These things shouldn't be considered a crime in the first place, and I asked for real examples. I won't turn down a candidate for my sw dev position because they used to be a prostitute.

HR will just filter out all candidates with a record to be on the safe side. They won’t evaluate if the record is relevant or not.

HR will also filter out candidates without an university (sometimes even specific, expensive ones) and you're not complaining about that. What about fixing HR instead?

This is extremely relevant for someone that was formerly a prostitute or drug addict. Even with laws in the US to wipe underage prostitution records there is still a major issue of people even knowing it exists. The people that get convicted of underage prostitution sometimes are trafficking victims. So in the US we are so harsh that we punish previous human trafficking victims indefinitely. It’s a balance. Employers have the means to identify those convicted of crimes.

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