The struggle of "forgotten right" in the age of large data

In January 2012, the European Commission issued the amendment to the Personal Data Protection directive, which suggested that a new "right to oblivion" should be added to the privacy law, that is, the right to require the relevant authorities to delete their personal data, while preventing the further spread of personal data. The realization of the "forgotten right" can be traced to a lawsuit, a Spanish man named Mario Costeja Gonzalez, who uses Google's search engine to retrieve his name, links to an article published in 1998 in the Spanish Herald. The article reported the fact that the man failed to pay social insurance and his house was auctioned off. Yet he thinks his debt problem has long been resolved, unrelated to his current life, but the message still appears in search results, damaging his reputation, requiring Google to remove the information and sue Google to the European court. The case focuses on whether the user is entitled to the "Forgotten right", and ultimately the plaintiff's request is supported by the European Court of Justice.

The European Court of Justice believes that the search engine operator's data location and dissemination behavior may damage the basic rights of the data subject, or in the broad sense may damage the data subject's personality right, the obligee can request to withdraw the data and prohibit the search engine operator to obtain the specific data. Therefore, in the case of Google has the obligation to remove from the search list from the personal name linked to a third party published and contains personal information page. Further, in certain circumstances, even if the information published on the Web page is legitimate, search engine operators should be based on the request of the right person to include personal information of the search list to be deleted. However, the European Court of Justice finally admits that there is an exception to the "right to be forgotten", which, if it is needed by the public interest, can still limit the "forgotten rights" of the data subject, such as the role of the data subject in public life, and intervene in its basic rights because the public needs to Therefore, it is necessary for the judge to exert the wisdom of judgment and find a balance between the search engine operators, the obligee and the public interests.

In fact, the "forgotten right" has been discussed for many years, the EU Member States have already had the "forgotten right" embryonic form. In France, criminals have the right to request their criminal history and records to be "forgotten" after the expiration of their sentences, and television and other media are not allowed to report any personal information related to their previous crimes. The German Constitutional Court also recognizes the right of individuals to protect their privacy, including the history of their sentences. The decision of the European Court has taken a very important step in the "right to be forgotten", and the right person can ask Google and other search engine companies to remove search results that are bad for their reputations.

In the large data age, data is a valuable resource, cloud computing and large data technology make people's real behavior is a lot of virtual data, powerful computing power to store and analyze these data provide the past unimaginable possibilities. However, this has to face a new problem, personal data is usually in the outside of the data subject control and know the scope is collected and used, the data subject to the data control ability is weak, personal privacy protection issues increasingly prominent. In the era of digital information, the user's data in the circulation of the Internet is understandable, to a certain extent, the flow of personal information is completely open and sharing the inevitable requirements of the network. In a large number of network activities, our location information, search habits, health needs, financial status and other highly personalized information, will be the corresponding site collection records. such as chat software to master the user's relationship network, online shopping mall will master the identity of users and consumption habits. The way and information processing methods are not publicized, increase the secrecy to some extent, and create conditions for privately dealing with these personal privacy. The promotion of privacy protection is not a new topic, the establishment of the Internet at the beginning of the industry to worry about this, and long-term approach to the solution, but has not achieved obvious results, but because of network technology innovation and progress, become increasingly difficult to control. Therefore, the formulation of long-term feasible restrictive strategy is the most crucial step to protect personal privacy. In order to balance the relationship between the data subject and the data controller, it is necessary to redistribute the data control between the data subject and the data controller. It is in this context that the network users have "forgotten right", aiming to enhance the data subject's ability to control personal data.

Although the law is currently restricted to European Union countries, American academics and Internet companies are critical of the "forgotten right" in sentencing, and their main views are expressed in several ways: first, how to reconcile the relationship between "forgotten right" and "free speech"? Do ordinary people really have the right to ask Internet companies to remove irrelevant information from search results, but for politicians or public entertainment people? This may not be the case, and if they are allowed to delete data that they consider "inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant", they might affect the public's freedom of speech and the right to know. Second, the "forgotten right" in the specific exercise, in search results should be how to remove the relevant information is still very vague, lack of operability, the European Court has only established a very broad principle provisions. "inadequate, irrelevant and irrelevant" standards are hard to define, and what people and what should be forgotten? These are not clearly defined. The "forgotten right" debate in Europe and America will certainly continue for a long time. However, in the network environment, how to better protect the personal information of citizens is a common problem in the world, especially last year "Prism Gate" incident to the national personal information protection sounded the alarm, to a certain extent, awakened the crisis consciousness of various countries.

The right to be forgotten has not been deeply discussed in China at this stage, however, the European court ruled that internet users enjoy the "forgotten right" of the impact can not be ignored, "forgotten right" has changed from the proposal to a de facto right, now the fierce debate in Europe and the United States on the case of China's internet industry has important enlightenment. In the age of large data, strengthening the protection of personal data is an irreversible trend. The protection of personal information needs legal "escort" to restrain all walks of life to strengthen the management of personal information, prompting the relevant enterprises to keep their promises, and to investigate the responsibility for the disclosure of personal information in accordance with the law. How to balance personal privacy protection and free sharing of the relationship, is the government, Internet enterprises and users long-term joint efforts to explore the issue, it is related to the future development of the Internet, related to the future of the Internet can be to a greater extent, to bring users a more secure experience.