European Court rules against Google, in favour of right to be forgotten

From Internet Policy Review – Feed: European Court rules against Google, in favour of right to be forgotten “ Note: This article was originally posted on the LSE Media Policy Blog, available here. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) finally released its long-awaited judgment in the Google Spain (C-131/12) case. In short, the Court decided that individuals do have a right to request search engines to remove links to webpages when the individual’s name is used as a search query. This ruling cannot be overturned and is now referred back to the national court. Theoretically, it is still possible for Google to take this case to the European Court of Human Rights (based on article 10 ECHR) once the national Court makes a final decision. Although the Case is often referred to as the Right to be Forgotten Case, it does not hinge upon the similarly named provision in the proposed Data Protection Regulation. Instead, the main legal basis in this decision was the Data Protection Directive 95/46 (hereafter: ‘the Directive’), including the rights to object (art.14) and to erasure (12(b)). The case is particularly interesting because it lies at the intersection of data protection law, freedom of expression and intermediary liability rules (a detailed discussion on this interaction is available here). The CJEU was asked to answer three main questions, relating to (1) the territorial scope of the Directive; (2) the material and personal scope of the Directive; and (3) whether or not data subjects have a right to object/erasure when it comes to search engines directly. Scope of Application With regard to the first two...

European Court of Justice calls data retention directive off

From Internet Policy Review – Feed of all News articles: European Court of Justice calls data retention directive off “ “Let’s see what Europe’s got,” one member of a highly nervous Twitter-community tweeted as the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg announced in its decision that the European Union’s data retention directive is just plainly and simply invalid. In its reasoning, the Court knocked down judicial arguments pro and contra to focus on the basic outcome of the instrument: mass surveillance and violation of fundamental rights. After all the considerations about how grave existing fundamental rights are limited by the EU data retention directive (2006/24) and about the reasoning of legislators on the needs for the up to 2-year storage of communication traffic and location data, the 15-judge chamber Tuesday morning dismissed the much fought over directive completely. It ruled that the EU legislature has just “exceeded the limits imposed by compliance with the principle of proportionality in the light of articles 7, 8 and 52(1) of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.” Well-meant ends do not justify all means Certainly, the judges said, the retained data was “a valuable tool for criminal investigations” and “consequently, the retention of such data may be considered to be appropriate for attaining the objective pursued by that directive,” namely the fight against terrorism and serious organised crime. Yes, the legislator was right to reject the argument of several complainants who were saying that anonymous communications would “make that measure inappropriate”. And yes, “it must be held that the fight against serious crime, in particular against organised crime and...