Comments on the „right to be forgotten”

There is a lot of confusion around the so-­called „right to be forgotten“. It seems more practicable and correct in terms of existing legal framework to refer to the existing and unquestionable right to data correction and erasure. All data subjects have these rights and all data controllers are obliged to respect them.

In this sense, there is no need to fundamentally change the existing dataprotection framework. The whole debate on „right to be forgotten” should rather be seen as concerning implementation and interpretation of these existing rights with regard to internet intermediaries. It should also be kept separate from the discussion on art. 17 of the draft data protection regulation (pending proposal on the EU level), which offers yet another understanding of the „right to be forgotten”. We must also remember that the alternative to placing an obligation on search engines to correct unfair, out of date results is to allow them to cause this prejudice to individuals.