The use of Europe’s “right to be forgotten” privacy law has broadened | Hacker News Reader

The use of Europe’s “right to be forgotten” privacy law has broadened

nytimes.com

54 pointscurt1567 comments

This is a very strange article with very unsympathetic protagonists. So two Italian muckrakers can't make a living publishing random details about people's lives, so what?

The issue here is that unlike today, even 20 years ago finding information used to be non-trivial. So there was little long-term damage to having a small Italian paper publish your name, in relation to charges that were eventually dropped. It still wasn't ideal, but it wasn't fatal to your reputation.

Today, anything and everything is online and follows people around like an unshakeable shadow. So of course these folks have the "right to be forgotten" -- it's bringing balance back to the equation.

"Journalists" are the worst perpetrators of this -- shout the lies loudly, but whisper the retraction or the truth. Good for the Europeans to have this law in place.

What makes them "muckrakers"?

to me this stands out

>But Vittorio Pecoraro argued that his privacy had been violated. The article was easily available and searchable online, and he had not been convicted of a crime. Yet because of PrimaDaNoi, what he considered a humiliating family argument had become the first thing that many people knew about him and his pizza and seafood restaurant, he said.

>“I have a reputation, I have been here for 50 years, I am known all over,” Mr. Pecoraro said in an interview at the restaurant, Positano, where the 2008 fight had occurred.

This situation has apparently threatened this man's business and it's not clear to me that there is a case for public interest.

This journalist is literally a guy sitting in his apartment digging up stories on private citizens. I actually agree with the court ruling here and I'm glad that we have the right to be forgotten. I don't want to live in a society were the commercial interests of paparazzi can destroy entire existences of people even if the people in question have apparently moved on long ago.

I don't want to live in a society where people's careers or personal lifes are ruined because someone at gawker or buzzfeed gets paid by clicks.

Digging around in other people’s dirt.

> Today, anything and everything is online and follows people around like an unshakeable shadow. So of course these folks have the "right to be forgotten" -- it's bringing balance back to the equation.

Right; but that would be a reason for Google to remove the information, not the newspaper. I mean, 20 years ago, it would have been possible to find such an article on microfiche in your local library if you knew where to look. It should still be possible to find it on the appropriate newspaper's website if you have the right link / look at the right date in history.

Needs to be deindexed at the news sites too. No use removing from Google if I can just go to bbc or YourHometownNewspaper and find the trivial but incredibly embarrassing thing, or old offence gwd did when younger.

Some countries have the concept of spent convictions or rehabilitation, especially restrictive around minors. After some number of years the conviction no longer exists, unless you want to join the police or similar. It's not reasonable for these to crop up for trivial effort.

If you get super rich and famous and have a tabloid digging dirt, well they might just send an intern to dig through 30 years of back issues... Not really a lot you can do about that.

For this reason it is common in continental Europe (and in some jurisdictions required by law) to refer to defendants only by their initials, unless they are a prominent public figure.

Interesting question. While in principle it seems like a terrible idea to force someone to delete such "important" information, I also kinda understand how the person in question wouldn't want this information floating around forever.

If I understand the situation correctly, it should probably be enough if this journalist would anonymize the names in the article, so it can no longer be traced back to any individual. After so many years, that does seem reasonable.

Also consider that journalists were never allowed to just publish anything. There always had to be a public interest for them to be allowed to publish certain details about peoples lives, so it only makes sense that they'd have to remove it as this public interest fades with time, yet the impact on peoples lives remains the same.

Just imagine having to apply for a job when the first thing that comes up when googling your name is a news story like that. On the other hand, who really cares about that story enough that it's worth possibly destroying someones life over it?

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EDIT:

From the text > “My only duty is to write and verify information,” Mr. Biancardi said from the apartment where he and Ms. Lotti worked 12-hour days at side-by-side desks. “Everything else comes after.”

Interesting that the privacy of the subjects he writes about doesn't seem to be a part of his thought process at all. If his defense was "There's still (and always will be) a public interest in this case", then I might have agreed, but with that attitude, I won't even call this guy a journalist.

Internet never forgets

Yes it does. The internet forgets lots of things. And anyway, this isn't about completely removing information from the internet, but removing it from the "front" of the internet, aka. news sites that show up at the top of google searches and are more trustworthy than some discussion from 9 years ago on a now half-dead message board.

Not wanting to dispute your point about the ranking of information, but sadly many news articles provide less perspective and accuracy on issues compared to original sources. I would consider it the rule by now.

It does, moreso than ever before, because fast internet speeds allow on-demand access and no-one has to download anything. Media files like Youtube videos or podcast episodes rarely get archived, at least in a publicly accessible way. Once they are taken down, they are usually gone.

There's a particular 1970s Pan Am ad I regret not saving: just a man looking at the camera and challenging the viewer to "do the things you always wanted to do" instead of worrying too much. Few years ago it got taken down from Youtube and I haven't been able to find it anywhere else online.

> Just imagine having to apply for a job when the first thing that comes up when googling your name is a news story like that.

Around here it's illegal to google applicants without their consent. Hiring decisions can use only information that the applicant provided.

Granted, that's undetectable unless the person doing the hiring messes up and mentions this. I do follow the law myself, don't really know what others are doing.

Also not sure how widespread this requirement is even in Europe.

Where is "Hiring decisions can use only information that the applicant provided" the law? This seems very excessive. For example, if I used to work with you at a different company and know you're really good it's very strange that I wouldn't be allowed to consider that in hiring you.

Surely there at least needs to be some way to seek independent verification (or otherwise) of the information provided by the applicant. We can't be expected to make hiring decisions solely and entirely on people's self-provided information.

You can ask for verifications of course. You can get copies of the degrees, access any GitHub account the applicant provides, call to former employers they provided as recommendations. If applicant refuses to do that, well, I suppose you can use that factoid in the hiring decision too.

Just ask for permission to google if it's crucial for the process.

That seems to be quite the reasonable law then.

Finland. For the Finnish speakers among us, it's "Laki yksityisyyden suojasta työelämässä". [0]

Employers do ask opinions from employees within the company if they've worked together in the past. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure if that's grey area or not.

I don't find the law excessive, but I'm quite privacy oriented to start with.

[0] https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2004/20040759

Thanks! I don't read Finnish so I'm reading your link in translation, but I don't see where in the law it says employers can't use outside sources of information in evaluating potential candidates? Could you point me to that section?

4§, two first sentences lay that out pretty clearly through Google Translate too.

> Hiring decisions can use only information that the applicant provided.

That would seem to preclude things like criminal background checks, or even calling up universities to verify any educational credentials the applicant listed on their resume.

Indeed in my nation you can't. You can ask the candidate to give you some self-certification of it which would put him under criminal trial if he lied, but you cannot contact any third party and ask for direct information (nor get an authorization to ask for direct information) about another person

They can be explicitly requested by the employer or required by the law.

I had to provide the criminal background and prove my studies to my current employer.

I also had to pass a medical examination to obtain a certificate of eligibility to work.

They are provided by the applicant anyway, you don't do secret background checks, at least you shouldn't.

In my country, the state provides a cert to the applicant stating that his background is sufficiently clean. No more details. You can't tell if I am spotless or have done jail time but it was long enough ago not to matter anymore.

It does containg language like ... has no criminal record, except for child molestation etc... Which doesnt mean we're a country full of perverts, only that it can't be trusted for jobs working with children, another cert is used for that.

Most developed countries don't do BG check's for tuppenny ha'penny (trivial jobs) jobs in the same way the USA does.

In the UK its only for working with kids and jobs requiring a proper security clearance.

"Around here it's illegal to google applicants without their consent."

Pretty sure that this is the first thing HR do everywhere, along with checking the personal page on social media etc. The first thing they look for is what the applicant told the world about his/her previous jobs and employers so that they avoid hiring people who talk too much.

I doubt this is widespread here. Companies don't want excess legal/reputational risks, especially professional HR folks are for sure aware of legislation they're operating under.

In countries with more lax approach to privacy, yeah sure it's going to happen.

The problem is that if there's no accountability or clear legislation then nothing stops someone from entering a name into a search engine, also because being fined for doing so would reveal an unprecedented level of surveillance. It probably depends on the context as you write, but I wouldn't be surprised by anything: years ago, probably 20 or so, there was a report of some companies or recruiters using horoscopes to decide if hiring someone was advisable or not:^)

But in this case there is clear legislation and accountability. Not surveillance sure, but trust that everyone follows the law, and plenty of people willing to speak up internally and externally if the law is broken. That's exactly how most laws work after all: no proactive surveillance, but consequences if caught.

Let's address the elephant in the room: the problem lies with Google.

Prior to this recent NY Times article, why is a family brawl with minor injuries and no charges that took place in 2008 shown on the first page of results when someone is looking up a man's pizza and seafood restaurant? Is that really the most relevant result that is in the public interest? I would bet money the original story didn't even have any backlinks.

Bing and other search engines are not nearly as awful, but Google in particular has a notoriously bad habit of promoting defaming content to the top of its search results. And right now, they absolutely dominate the search market.

It is my belief that Google's AI is optimized to prioritize "scandalous" content, because it grabs readers' attention, in the same way National Enquirer headlines at the grocery store checkout lane do.

Google does the same sort of thing with YouTube, promoting extremist content above moderate content, and it has a real effect on people: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/yo...

There is a real problem with online harassment and defamation, and Google is contributing heavily to it by rewarding sites that peddle defaming content.

I love this hypothesis because not only does it fit in perfectly with my world view of Google, but because it’s entirely plausible to consider how their algorithm could inadvertently optimize for such a result simply by looking at click through and bounce rates.

People are likely to click on the most sensational result on the page, and in cases like this they are pretty damn sure going to pick a different search query afterward, which to the algorithm will look like success.

It seems like something easy to study and prove to a high degree of confidence if it is occurring. Particularly the theory that other search engines don’t surface the same negative content, or don’t rank it as highly.

I have done a significant amount of research into this, and compared results through multiple search engines. I am confident this is mostly specific to Google.

I would prefer not to name the sites in question, because they are borderline illegal and I do not wish to give them exposure, but on the off chance any journalists are reading this and are interested, please get in contact with me here and I will share my findings.

For context, the BBC publishes a list of articles that are hit by this ruling.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/authors/e7896818-cd4d-3...

After a quick click around some examples of what is being "forgotten"

Some people smugglers - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8093741.stm

This review of best cities - https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20151124-the-best-city-...

This story about someone not being entitled to privacy because of her roll in public life - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18189668

This story about a former cabinet minister's troubles (lots of stuff about Chris Huhne on the list) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25814537

Related to above, Nick Clegg would like Chris Huhne to return to cabinet - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20978489

how is that creating such a list not serve the opposite purpose of the law ??

The idea is generally to keep things from showing up when you search for people by name, not to remove the information entirely.

So the law is only for google ? That make 0 sense

Someone could make a Right to be Forgotten request to the BBC for the news article, but they'd need to meet a higher standard. The listing is of ones where people have asked to have the result removed from Google.

Just yesterday, I read "European Court limits right to be forgotten to E.U" [1] linking to a court ruling at europa.eu [2]. RtBF can be circumvented e.g. via a non-EU VPN / Tor exit node.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21058848

[2] http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...

Dear journalist...

it’s called forgiveness. Look it up.

The problem with permanent records is, that it forces you to never change. Meaning you deliberately keep a murderer a murderer. Even in cases where their life completely changed since then and they are a valuable contributor to society again.

E.g. no matter how much you try … meet with your old buddies from the school/city you left decades ago … and suddenly you’re the same loser again, getting bullied just like back then.

And if my loved ones were murdered, the LAST thing I would want, is for the murderer to not even be allowed to do good in the world to balance the evil. Or to act like they did too, and do to them as they did to me.

Because as a child of people who had to murder in war, to not be tortured and raped and murdered (three of my family membera were still murdered and two tortured), I know very well, that there is no such thing as mentally undamaged/unharmed person that intentionally murders somebody when it looks like she has a choice. Or who does no regret it when they come to their senses.

Let people heal! Violence, even simple holding a grudge and shaming, which is what you did, dear journalist, is not making anything better. Only worse.

We aren’t truly out of the dark ages, until we forego revenge (aka ”punishment“ aka violent harm) and manage to fix even murderers and rapists to make them functioning parts of society again.

The bit about damages is weird from a privacy standpoint, did Biancardi also loose a defamation lawsuit or something? Or is it the other way in Italy, and a defamation lawsuit can force you to take down material?

I realize this was mostly a story about a single case that some editor put an overly broad headline on, but given the headline I was expecting more about this "broadened" use.

Some discussion about if the right to be forgotten law has a larger impact than the DMCA trolling would have been nice too.

Why is the right to be forgotten only discussed in the context of somebody doing something illegal?

Suppose I wrote something on the internet a long time ago. And now it's being replicated by companies who make their money by selling ads.

Now my words are being used to sell products I don't even like. I'd rather have whatever I wrote be deleted than for someone to think whatever ad is showing might be relevant.

This is a copyright/intellectual property issue, not a right to be forgotten issue.

If you wrote it, outside of employment, you hold the copyright to what you have written. I believe that is so internationally.

The hypothetical companies publishing that writing are breaching your copyright.

Even if you were commissioned to write a piece for a particular purpose, it is likely (by my understanding) that you still hold the copyright, and the hypothetical companies are still breaching your copyright by using your work for an unlicensed purpose.

You're right it's also a copyright issue.

What are your cost estimates if I treated it as a copyright issue and just start suing everyone in breach as a private citizen for something I posted for free for everyone?

In theory, your suggestion works. In practice, copyright laws are more intended for companies and lawyers while privacy laws are for individuals.

edit: The right to be forgotten doesn't mention if there's also a copyright violation I can't invoke it.

Well good it's not fundamental "right" (you have no rights to other people's brains) - but courts should not accept what was written 10 years ago as evidence for or against someone's character.

why not? if he did something bad 10 years ago and he did again one month ago, is says something about his character.

gp wrote:

>but courts should not accept what was written 10 years ago as evidence for or against someone's character.

you wrote:

>he did again one month ago

...

Why are some of the comments here defending the deletion of facts? If it's a fact that you've stabbed someone and there is a police record to uphold that then you should not have the right for that to be forgotten.

It's in the interest of other people to know if you have done something like this previously (that warrants a police record) and also serves as a deterrent to other potential perpitrators.

This article is interesting because it's an example of how the original intention of the law is being exploited. Surely, this can just be refined with an amendment.

Because you're effectively describing what amounts to a life sentence. The courts should determine someone's reintegration plan and what consequences they should suffer, this goes beyond what the sentence was.

Equating this to a "life sentance" is a strawman argument. It's a matter of factual record. Opening up the door to allow people to erase facts (of offenses) about themselves will be exploited, just as it is being done in this article.

Facts are not deleted, you can ask for a criminal record.

If you mean that Googling a name and finding an accusation as a fact then think again, many such accusation are exaggerated or false. Also keep in mind that people share the same name and it happens that they live in close proximity (they may be related) so you may get your "facts" wrong when googling me but finding out that my cousin was in a fight 20 years ago or had an unpopular opinion back then.

Again, strawman. An accusation is not a fact. If someone writes something about you and cannot defend it by reference to recorded legal offence or proceeding then it should be taken down.

I think the key point is that there is a requirement that the facts being deleted have no significant public interest [0]. So, for example, Boris Johnson can't have his name removed from search results because there's a public interest in preserving the historical record (can't delete facts with significant relevance to the public), but you can have revenge porn deleted (the public really could care less, and doesn't at all benefit from, what you look like naked).

[0] http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&doc...

Maybe, but public interest is subjective. The line should probably be drawn at legal offenses. If you commit a sexual offense (e.g. sex in public) that warrants a police record, it should remain. However, if your privacy is violated by someone else when you were not committing an offense then you should have the right for that to be forgotten.

Theres also the general problem of the truthness of what people write about you online .. anyone can write anything so it shoulg be at least defendable to be kept

Agreed, if something can’t be defended with reference to a legal offence or proceeding then it should have the right to be forgotten / removed.

I think that it's in public interest to know that someone has inclination to stab people.

Do you have such an inclination? maybe you do and you don't even know it yet, it is said that we can do a lot of things if circumstances are right. Say someone attacked you , now 20 years later you can't get a job because some misunderstanding that happen 20 years ago, maybe you don't even know that Gogle shows that fact about you because when you search your name you see something else.

>Why are some of the comments here defending the deletion of facts?

I see people referring to the search results, the facts still remain in the original databases, so 10 years old articles should still be there.

Let's say I did something stupid 20 years ago, nothing major, if this is not important for the society then why should it appear on Google? Would you be OK if all your embarrassing moments are searchable on Google ? maybe you are lucky and not such moment was published but someone else may not be that lucky.

If it’s not an offence then it should have a right to be removed. If it is a legal offence like DUI, then it should remain.

What about the legal offences that expire?

An employer might ask to see my driving licence, which includes convictions, for a driving job. A UK equivalent of DUI expires off the licence after 10 years I think. If the law no longer requires it to be revealed, surely it should be removable?

Agreed, that makes sense.

Why can't the EU produce easy to follow guidelines and examples and make the process fair?

Right to be forgotten shouldn't be about taking down the information, but protecting those involved.

For example, let's take Grievous bodily harm. If a journalistic source reports on a GBH case (such as this), we could come up with some rules that say the publisher has the right to include:

- identifying details about "incidentals" - e.g. the victim (e.g. Name) or location (e.g. Business name) for 3 years after the event. After that, they must replace it with generalities - "A 39 year old man", "A restaurant on Letsby Avenue". Must ensure that an individual person or business cannot be identified from the generalized description without significant legwork.

- identifying details about the perpetrator for a number of years after the first article is published - at least 6. Their age should be a consideration here - if a 90 year old stabs someone at dinner, I'd expect that to be generalized after 5 years. If a 20 year old stabs someone at dinner, I'd expect that to survive for 20 years. So assuming we now have a number between 6 and 20, if the person was not convicted, that number should be halved.

Once that's done for various classes of crimes, the process should be cheap and easy - the publisher should be sent a letter by the subject or someone with a vested interest in the article and request that the article be redacted. Provided they give enough information, the publisher should be able to look up the guidelines and either agree or reply with a reason. If they refuse, they can be taken to court.

On a broader note, this is just another way that GDPR is broken. It feels like the lawmakers wanted it to cover so much, that they wanted to right wrongs so badly, that they didn't care who would get hurt in the process. Almost retaliatory lawmaking.

This will be used like patents system

*ABused

Also no, that's what we have courts for: They decide if it is justified or not to remove something from the internet. Not every legal system is as corrupt as that of the USA¹, you know?

¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eatfgXTMFf0

If you are running some sort of politically connected criminal conspiracy GDPR and "Right to be Forgotten" seem tailor made for coverups. No stuff left lying around for Wikileaks or prosecutors. Any screw ups in the coverup can be managed with "Right to be forgotten".

How can I use GDPR as a criminal? Do I ask google to delete my account? and because a criminal asks to delete an account or an email Google should in fact keep copies of all emails and all data forever? Browsers should then not allow to delete your history because some criminal can use that functionality, it is obvious a function created to hide stuff /s

I don't think one should be able to hide data from the proper authorities if they are properly authorized by law, but one should be able to hide it from non law enforcement. Browser history deleting and such are a reasonable accommodation of the latter. I guess Wikileaks violates this rule, but they don't care about violating people's privacy unless they're corrupt politicians.

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