The internet seems is a never-ending bundle of content that we all would like to forget. In the stash of photos and conversations with friends and ramble rants on the internet, are photos of us drunk, passed-out, smoking (up), or simply embarrassing childhood pictures of us in our diapers which our younger sibling thought would be great for the world to show! We all have those regrets. Don’t we? But what if we could remove such embarrassing content from the face of the world wide web? Wouldn’t it just be amazing!
The European Union policymakers such as Viviane Reding, justice commissioner of the EU and vice-president of the European Commission, believe that European citizens should have the right to withdraw their consent from online information. The “ Right to be Forgotten ” proposal seeks to protect (or ensure erasure of) consumer that will help reinstate the power of privacy back with the consumers.
The law will enable people to remove embarrassing things from the global memory even after it is shared on multiple websites. In a world increasingly moving to cloud computing, this would mean that once content is removed from the source rest would eventually follow. For example, the phone number you once shared via your Facebook profile found its way into numerous mobile phonebooks all thanks to syncing up of data. If tomorrow you were to decide to delete that information the application programming interface would be able to remove the same from your friends’ contact list. However, if someone is old-school and decided to copy the number into his phone diary the law will be unable to help you, obviously.
Many websites presently do allow you to remove content. Facebook allows you to report a photograph or post if you find it offensive, malicious, sexually explicit or if it tantamount to cyber-bullying. After review if your claim stands true that content is removed. However, you’ll have hard luck getting a photo removed just because it shows you drunk or looking fat! Similarly, twitter allows you to report a violation if someone tweets your personal information, which includes credit card information, social security or other national identity numbers, addresses or locations that are considered and treated as private (so information pertaining to Area 66 will be taken down, sadly), etc.
While it maybe a sigh of relief for almost everybody, the proposal proves to be problematic. Firstly, such a law, if enacted, will hinder our right to free speech. While freedom should have limitations and have legal remedies against those misusing the freedom, a blanket ban may not be the solution. Secondly, while the proposal guarantees the erasure of data will it actually be able to remove all traces of our drunken affairs and duckface poses?
The Right to be Forgotten proposal is working its way through EU’s legal process will have to be carefully thought through so that while it empowers people it does not infringe on our right to free speech. Once worked out we hope that slowly and steadily people across the globe will have the ability to remove those cringing personal photos.
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