Relevance: GS-2: Structure, Organization and Functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary-Ministries and Departments of the Government; Pressure Groups and Formal/Informal Associations and their Role in the Polity.

Key phrases: Right to be forgotten, GDPR

Why in news?

• Delhi high court has granted relief to a petitioner seeking to exercise right to be forgotten

Analysis:

What is Right To Be Forgotten?

• Right to have publicly available personal information removed from the internet, search, databases, websites or any other public platforms, once the personal information in question is no longer necessary
• RTBF gained currency after the 2014 decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) in the Google Spain case.
• In India, there is no law that specifically provides for the right to be forgotten. However, the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019 recognised this right.

Status in India

• RTBF doesn’t have legislative sanction yet. However, in the Puttaswamy judgment 2017 , the Supreme court held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right
• Currently, many High courts have expressly recognised the right to be forgotten in their judgments, taking note of international jurisprudence on this right.
• Recommendations by the B.N Srikrishna Committee also emphasized this right. Thus, it was incorporated under the Draft Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019

Need of such right

• Ability to remove libelous, embarrassing, and stigmatizing information from a past post or upload
• The removal of illegally uploaded content by a third party, including “revenge porn”
• Removing information that might compromise personal or financial safety

Challenges with such rights

• First, it gets in conflict with the right to information, which is part of freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian constitution
• It may impair the right of media personnel to do independent reporting. The adjudicatory officer may remove articles of media groups that generally criticize government policies.
• The removal of complete judgments may restrict public scrutiny of judicial performance to ascertain the fairness and objectivity of the administration of justice. Further judgments are an important source of learning for law students
• The removal sometimes creates a Streisand effect. It is a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information.

Way ahead

• Privacy needs to be added as a ground for reasonable restriction under Article 19 (2) through a constitutional amendment for the effective implementation of RTBF.
• The impending Data Protection Bill should be passed expeditiously. This would give individuals a legal right to erase their unnecessary and inappropriate personal data.

Source: Indian Express