EU Commission Says People Have a 'Right To Be Forgotten' Online 200
nk497 writes "The European Commission wants to strengthen data protection rules to give more power to consumers — including the right to be forgotten online. Legislation it's looking to push through next year will let consumers know when and how their data is being used, and force companies to delete it when asked. 'People should be able to give their informed consent to the processing of their personal data,' the commission said in a statement. 'They should have the "right to be forgotten" when their data is no longer needed or they want their data to be deleted.'"
Re:What about other people's data about me? (Score:3, Informative)
How does this work with years of backup tapes? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As opposed to... what? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, every country is free to implement the details of the directive in question regarding data deletion and privacy as they see fit. There is no magic "removal" wand, and many countries will keep some data, officially or not.
Some EC member countries even immediately abused the directive to mean extra data collection. Some countries decided to interpret it as a requirement for the police to have direct, real-time access to such information. In some countries, the fight to protect citizen privacy due to this directive is still not won by a wide margin.
Ignoring the schizophrenic inconsistency of the EC and not taking them to task is why they've turned the way they are.
The same European Commission is, for example, currently conspiring with several other governments and big business organizations to promote even more surveillance and enforcement with ACTA, and denies the European Parliament access to the text of the proposal agreements.
Sounds like the Data Protection Act 1984 (Score:2, Informative)
Sounds an awful lot like the uk data protection act of 1984, which applied to all data, written and electronic, held on an individual.
"Personal information may be kept for no longer than is necessary and must be kept up to date."
"Data must not be disclosed to other parties without the consent of the individual about whom it is about..."
"Entities holding personal information are required to have adequate security measures in place. Those include technical measures (such as firewalls) and organisational measures (such as staff training)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Act_1984#History [wikipedia.org]
Looking through the main points of the Act, it makes you wonder why you don't hear more about nefarious data-collecting companies being taken to the courts here in the U.K.
Re:Amazing, and ironic (Score:3, Informative)
Privacy is a fundamental human right recognized in the UN Declaration of Human Rights, the International Convenant on Civil and Political Rights and in many other international and regional treaties. It is one of 'first principles' together with other basic freedoms. It is included in constitutions of many countries - in the newer constitutions it tends to be more explicit, and USA is a notable absence; but even there the issues like unreasonable searches and privacy of your home are covered.
Some classical citations from earlier centuries:
In 1765, British Lord Camden, striking down a warrant to enter a house and seize papers wrote, "We can safely say there is no law in this country to justify the defendants in what they have done; if there was, it would destroy all the comforts of society, for papers are often the dearest property any man can have."
Parliamentarian William Pitt wrote, "The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the force of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may blow though it; the storms may enter; the rain may enter -- but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement."
In 1890, American lawyers Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis wrote a seminal piece on the right to privacy as a tort action describing privacy as "the right to be left alone."
However, in practice specific and detailed rights such as the right to privacy of personal data come from "we the people" agreeing that we want it and getting it passed as law - which EU has done a bit further than other countries. In this sense it's simply more like a business regulation, forcing businesses to keep a socially acceptable code of conduct.
Re:As opposed to... what? (Score:3, Informative)
Uh what?
http://boingboing.net/2010/03/10/eu-parliament-votes.html
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/08/1510255/European-Parliament-All-But-Rejects-ACTA