“The right to be forgotten”, a reasonable reality or a Web 2.0 myth?

“The right to be forgotten”, a reasonable reality or a Web 2.0 myth? by Jamie Taylor

The issue of an individual’s want, right or need to their online personal privacy has since its inception produced considerable contention and debate. Currently this alleged “right” is not protected by a host of the most prominent social media sites on the web, arguably the most publicised legal deficiency of this nature being found on facebook.com. Increasingly however this issue of an individual’s right to “freedom from the past” is, as social networking sites information spans longer and longer time periods, creating considerable issues both personal and more general. My blog will therefore focus upon where this issue lies with current governments, what the effects and risks are to individuals through their social networking profiles, and whether it is both reasonable and realistic for our private lives online to simply… disappear.

Due to growing pressure in regards to deletion of personal information the issue has risen to the top of the technological legislation agenda. This has come in the form of a European Union initiative to provide people with “the right to be forgotten” which would come in the form of a European Data Protection Regulation. However, at this present time a political clash between the European Union and the British ministry of Justice has erupted regarding this legal change. The British Ministry of Justice is alternatively requesting an adapted law that would apply to Britain, providing it with greater “flexibility”  in its enforcement of such a law. The main crux of the British governments’ argument is the possible difficulty in enforcing such a law, which due to the manner in which sites like twitter, MySpace and Facebook pass on personal information to third-party companies could lead to long-term, potentially costly and irrevocably unsuccessful recuperation.

In terms of opposition to the EU proposed legislation seems to be stuck more so upon the practical usage and implementation of such legislation.  Clearly this could prove time-consuming and costly in a period of budgetary governmental cuts and will, at least in the British example provide headaches in regards to how this right is protected and how social networking sites are punished for contravening this proposed legal change.  This argument does become particularly more compelling when the manner in which data is passed on between various internet organisations is taken into account and how exactly this is to be traced if it has been replicated as has been argued by Edward Vaizey the current Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries.

It would appear that despite this rebuke from the British government in very recent years the consequences of embarrassing or equally false data remaining on the internet has all ready fuelled scandals and legal battles regarding grey areas in data protection. Notable examples have been Max Schem who had a high profile battle spanning a number of months with Facebook in order to obtain the subsequently discovered 1,222 pages of material the site possessed on him.  A case currently running in the British press pertains precisely to the now ever-emerging risks attached with possessing a social networking profile from an early age, where the newly appointed first  youth police and crime commissioner Paris Brown (17) is under investigation from both the national media and police force alike for posting homophobic, racist and violent language on her twitter account dating back to when she was 14 years old, including a reference to “hash brownies” in which she denies all allegations.  

 The most prominent argument being given in her defence is the fact she was 14 at the time of publishing these comments and despite her now still relatively young age, it is unfair for her to be judged on comments made whilst in her early adolescence. Primarily it is the right to delete potentially damaging or embarrassing posts from individuals past, most likely those in their youth that this proposed European legislation would be pursuing. It can be assumed without a doubt that these kind of instances will become more common in the near future and reach a point where all individuals are indicted for past posts in regards to; university applications; job interviews and at the top end of the scale political appointments. This feeling is equally reflected by the British public with the privacy pressure group Big Brother Watch recording 68% of British people stating ‘concerns’ regarding their personal privacy online. 

 

                                                                                                      The debate can continue in regards to whether these methods of vetting are valid or in fact accurate but a more critical issue is still that of whether an individual, after consenting to the terms and conditions of an individual social network and voluntarily publishing statements/information/posts online should have the right to erase these once they become outdated, inaccurate or potentially damaging to the individuals personal interests.  It is an interesting conflict point that has emerged from the basic principles and basis of Web 2.0, which inherently relies upon exchange of information and date between individuals and where the possession of such information lies post-publishing. Nonetheless it appears fairly unanimous that the vast majority are in favour of this right in principle, even in just a hypothetical sense, with nay-sayers to similar or the same legislation arguing along lines of feasibily of implementation rather than the now somewhat outdate ‘if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to lose’ argument.  Viktor Mayer-Schönberger the self-professed “midwife” of the right to be erased and the current professor of internet governance at the Oxford Internet Institute has stated, "The more I've worked on data protection over the past 20 years, the more I've realised that at the heart of this, what matters as much as the privacy aspect is the issue of human decision-making”.  Essentially Mayer-Schonberger is hitting at the primary argument for the right to be erased, that it is fundamentally an exercise of an individual’s right to decide their past and present and not that of a potentially unscrupulous social network provider.

Even with this morally derived argument opposition to such internet privacy laws has been upheld, with claims that this measure could damage the growth of the internet industry in the European Union by U.S. Critics of the legislation. Thomas Lenard, president of the Technology Policy Institute (a free-market think-tank) claimed, “If adopted, it will stifle the development of the Internet, which depends critically on the use of individual data to develop, improve, and fund services and content." Equally the costs this would bear upon large corporations has been raised as a supporting argument for how this may stifle the industries growth where, under the legislation “The proposal would require companies with more than 250 employees to appoint data protection officers, and it would require companies to report data breaches within 24 hours.” However for the obvious reasons it seems unreasonable to suggest the costs for such processes would significantly damage a company’s economic prospects.

Nonetheless it would seem the general consensus upon an individual’s right to erase has been decided amongst the general population and politicians alike and would appear to be in many regards a matter of moral conviction if not one of governmental practicality. However in the exceptional case of Britain it would seem the enforcement of such a deemed essential right may in fact be considerably more difficult than one would initially assume, especially in an industry where social networking sites have enjoyed a near 20 year head start in shaping their own internet privacy policies to ensure and protect their business interests for the foreseeable future. Even with this legislation in place the innumerable replications, spread of data and information sharing presents the question as to whether one could ever truly be ‘erased’, current internet data practices and trends would suggest, in spite of the perceived entitlement many of us feel we have to this liberty, regrettably no.