
Europeans have a 'right to be forgotten' online. Should Canadians? - alexeyindeev
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/right-to-be-forgotten-canada-eu-court-1.5297528
======
6gvONxR4sf7o
I'm surprised everyone has such black and white views on this. Some things are
in the public's interest to record permanently. Some aren't. Laws that respect
that distinction are great.

Recording everything forever is good in the same way that a total lack of
privacy is good. Many things should be transparent, and they should be
recorded. But there's room for nuance.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Right to be forgotten actually clearly stipulates those things. Information
that's "of the public interest" cannot be forgotten under RTBF, for instance.
It clearly defines the reasons people should be able to have their information
forgotten, such as it being false, very out of date, private, etc.

Unfortunately, right to be forgotten has a huge weak point: It relies on the
party forgetting (often Google or Bing) to decide whether or not RTBF applies,
rather than a neutral party such as a court. Criticisms of RTBF have largely
surrounded examples where the decisionmaking was faulty, and unfortunately,
the entities making the decisions would very much like the legislation to
fail.

I would far rather RTBF requests be reviewed and approved or rejected by a
government office, not a search engine company.

~~~
umvi
> I would far rather RTBF requests be reviewed and approved or rejected by a
> government office, not a search engine company.

Wouldn't that mean politicians and their cronies can more easily scrub their
own histories? Government holding the keys to approve/reject RTBF means it
will be biased in favor of self-serving government-related RTBF requests

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Not necessarily. Governments tend to have pretty decent records and processes
of their own. Note all of the difficulties Trump has trying to just make the
US government do whatever the heck he feels like on any given day.

And the biggest part about these decisions being handled by government is that
there would be accountability, records, and appeals, all of which you really
don't have when a corporation is making the decision.

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kd3
What about my right to remember?? What right does anyone else have to demand
that you forget something? Do they have more say about your body than you
yourself? If so, you are a slave.

When tech merges with brains will they demand intrusion to delete what they
don't want you to remember?

~~~
umvi
> When tech merges with brains will they demand intrusion to delete what they
> don't want you to remember?

Yes, but only if it is possible to index/search/dump the contents of people's
brains. In that case we are walking video cameras violating people's privacy
everywhere we go, and it is only logical that we should mandate people get
their brains wiped of privacy infringing information.

How would you like it if people sold information about you based on what they
saw and heard you do in public? That is a gross violation of _your_ privacy
and illegal theft of _your_ data. Wouldn't you want that person's brain to be
wiped of information they have on you to protect your rights?

~~~
nordsieck
> How would you like it if people sold information about you based on what
> they saw and heard you do in public?

You mean like PIs?

> That is a gross violation of your privacy and illegal theft of your data.

Most people don't like it, but it's certainly not illegal.

~~~
umvi
> You mean like PIs?

Yes, but they have a government-approved license to do so, normal citizens do
not. Random civilians aren't allowed to just PI people.

In terms of privacy rights, it would be for the best if people had mandatory
implants inserted at birth that automatically prevented brains from recording
things about other people in public that haven't consented to your recording.
I'm thinking something like White Christmas (Black Mirror) where the default
is that strangers that haven't opted in are fuzzed out visually and audibly.
This would be a _huge_ win for privacy rights.

~~~
danShumway
But... isn't the entire point of White Christmas that this technology has
horrifying social consequences?

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but do people really look at Black Mirror episodes
and walk away thinking, "that might be a really good idea."?

~~~
nordsieck
> do people really look at Black Mirror episodes and walk away thinking, "that
> might be a really good idea."?

Apparently at least one person did.

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cortesoft
I really hate the 'right to be forgotten'... it infringes on other people's
'right to remember'

I should be able to talk about my experience with someone else in a public
forum, even if that information is something that person doesn't want others
to know.

~~~
rolltiide
> I should be able to talk about my experience with someone else in a public
> forum, even if that information is something that person doesn't want others
> to know.

Europe right to be forgotten only applies to publicly indexed searches, not
the content - according to the top court

Nothing you said seems to be the reality that exists

So just bookmark a page and revisit it later, the tools have existed since the
90s

~~~
Hitton
That's not true, just yesterday there was trending article[1] about journalist
who was forced to take down the article.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21047308](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21047308)

~~~
rolltiide
The use has broadened as member states interpret it differently

The EU top court has been consistent that only de-referencing needs to occur

------
SolaceQuantum
Genuine question: Who benefits when everything we ever do, say, etc. is
permanently recorded on a grand, systemtic level?

~~~
iamtheworstdev
Who benefits if we legally create the ability to delete history?

~~~
umvi
criminals and politicians, mainly

~~~
__m
Except it doesn’t apply to them

------
criddell
> Fearing a court could potentially order "politically or religiously
> sensitive material" be removed, Gratton says she's "not a big fan of the
> right to be forgotten."

What is religiously sensitive material?

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Scientology sacred texts.

------
temporaryvector
The reason I don't like 'right to be forgotten' laws because it feels like
it's using the law as a blunt instrument to solve a problem that is cultural
in nature.

The reason such a law is required is often stated as "What if I, a changed
person, am still haunted by something I did 20 years ago?" which to me seems
more of a problem with our culture failing to adapt to new technologies. The
world changed too rapidly and the culture is too emotion-driven these days,
making 'right to be forgotten' laws seem necessary when the problem should,
ideally, be solved by education.

I don't have the time right now to go into in depth about my thoughts, but I
think there needs to be a distinction between 'right to be forgotten' as a
cultural value and 'right to be forgotten' as law, the same way there's a
distinction between 'freedom of speech' as a value ("I may disagree with what
you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it") and 'freedom of
speech' as law as in the First Amendment. I'm not entirely sure where the line
should be drawn, though, that is up for discussion.

My thoughts on the matter can be summed up as follows: Blocking some speech
from your private website or publishing old racist tweets on your private
website should fall in the same category (roughly) as eating an entire
birthday cake: Something that shouldn't be illegal but something that should
not be seen as good, people who do it should be made aware that what they're
doing is not good but that it is their right to do so.

The recent controversy about Carson King (the viral Busch Light man) and his
old racist tweets and the public reaction to all that come to mind as an
example.

~~~
libertine
I don't think it's a cultural thing, simply because across time when ever you
wanted someone to be remembered, or their actions, you would still do it no
matter the medium - word of mouth, paper, stone.

The problem is bound to the internet medium: how information is spread,
indexed and stored, while being cheap - so cheap we can almost claim it's
free.

It's not a matter of one being a changed person or not. It's simply your right
to not have your information indexed, with no intrinsic value attached to it.

People wouldn't be featured on an old mass media like newspaper unless such
person was "news-worthy" in the eyes of journalists that had to a code of
conduct.

The internet has no morals or code of conduct.

------
waynesonfire
I was recently browsing the terms and agreements of a Swiss online merchant
and stumbled upon this,

'Swiss law requires us to archive business data for 10+ years. This means that
we do not have the right to "forget" you.' [1]

It's unclear to me how Europeans have a right to be forgotten given the above.

[1]
[https://www.swissmicros.com/terms.php](https://www.swissmicros.com/terms.php)

~~~
noodlesUK
Switzerland isn’t part of the EU. They are free to have laws that conflict
with the EU’s laws.

~~~
waynesonfire
Ah, of course. And the GDPR section on their site is probably for their EU
customers.

------
rekabis
This is still so easy to circumvent.

If it is purely by domain, switch away from google.ca and use google.com to
get the results you need.

If it uses geolocation of any kind, use a VPN that allows you to switch
between endpoints, and use an endpoint in the States to bring up Canadian
information.

In the end, this is nothing more than privacy theatre, in that these changes
are only cosmetic and skin-deep.

Granted, I am of the firm opinion that all data is sacrosanct, and that the
only thing that should be scrubbable from the Internet is misinformation that
has been _proven_ to be demonstrably false by a court of law. Things like
prior convictions should not be admissible unless you were later cleared of
all charges and the convictions are clearly not in the public’s interest.

~~~
parliament32
People keep trying to force the internet to follow country borders but they
don't understand _it just doesn 't work that way_. It's kinda like when your
vegetarian neighbours keep complaining about BBQ smells wafting over to their
property: the wind doesn't know or care about your property lines.

I don't think any information should be removed/removable from the internet,
as long as there is demand for it. Users need to be a bit more savvy for
expecting and identifying misinformation though.

------
not_a_cop75
Should anybody? This could be used to remove accountability, and certainly
will.

~~~
VBprogrammer
I was thinking about the right to be forgotten just the other day. It reminds
me of the line "democracy is the worst form of government, except from all of
the others which we've tried".

Imagine a young person who gets wrapped up in some illegal activity. 30 years
later settled down with a wife and kids he goes for a job interview and the
person across the desk happens to have googled his name. That to me doesn't
feel fair, people should have the ability to avoid their past haunting them
forever.

Pre-internet the problem was naturally solved. The interviewer could have dug
back through all of the local newspapers and happened upon an article but
that's incredibly unlikely. Maybe if he was running for public office it might
be uncovered.

The other side is that politicians and millionaires can use it to hide their
dirty secrets. Nothing is perfect though so maybe that is the price we pay.

~~~
Hitton
The question is if you should defend the rights of the past offenders or
current potential victim. Sure, there might be repercussions for past conduct,
but at the end just one person is responsible for it. On the other hand you
have potential victims who can't protect themselves by doing background check
on potential perpetrator. If you prevent the victim from taking reasonable
precautions, aren't you at least a little bit complicit?

~~~
cirno
"Potential victim" sounds a lot like precrime in Minority Report.

Either people are once a criminal, always a criminal and should be permanently
extricated from society; or people have the ability to grow and deserve a
second chance at a normal life.

I believe in the latter, as does the justice system that lets people go after
their time is served (barring sex offender registries, at least). And I
understand that yes, sometimes, we get it wrong and a person reoffends. Life
is messy and sometimes unfair, but we have to strike a balance and take some
risk sometimes.

I further believe that if a person is able to put their criminality behind
them, the recidivism rate will drop. If you deny them gainful employment
because Google decided a news article from 20 years ago is the most relevant
thing about a person, which biases all future potential employers against
recruiting him, then I believe they will have far less to lose and are more
likely, right or wrong, to take upon them the mindset that, "if you're going
to treat me like a criminal, then I am going to act like one!"

~~~
viklove
> or people have the ability to grow and deserve a second chance at a normal
> life.

Yes, and I should have the ability to judge wether or not they've grown and
changed, but I can't do that if I'm not even aware they committed crimes in
the past.

~~~
VBprogrammer
What about someone who was raped wanting to have the details of that rape de-
indexed?

------
kcolford
I feel that the right to be forgotten is valid because people are irrational
and will be prejudiced against a person regardless of how different the
current reality is. This would make me want to put a time limit (like you have
to wait 10 years or something) rather than allow current/relevant information
to be suppressed.

I also feel that people don't get to pick and choose. If you want to be
forgotten then everything should be forgotten, not just the stuff you don't
like.

