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Media organizations urge Canada to reject 'right to be forgotten'
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 05/06/2016 09:50:56
- In: FOI
ASNE is one of nine media organizations that filed comments drafted by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as that country considers adoption of the controversial "right to be forgotten" that has taken hold in Europe.
Our letter urges Canada to reject the right to be forgotten because as a general concept, it is overbroad. That right, like any other privacy right, should always be considered in the fact-specific context in which it arises. This is especially true when balanced against freedom of expression.
ASNE is one of nine media organizations that filed comments drafted by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, as that country considers adoption of the controversial "right to be forgotten" that has taken hold in Europe. The right to be forgotten is a relatively recent creation of the European Court of Human Rights and allows individuals to ask search engines to remove links to stories with personal information that is "inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive." The subject of a news story cannot demand that a publication remove the story; he or she can only demand that a search engine "delink" the article, though that will significantly impact access to that information.
Our letter urges Canada to reject the right to be forgotten because as a general concept, it is overbroad. That right, like any other privacy right, should always be considered in the fact-specific context in which it arises. This is especially true when balanced against freedom of expression. When information involves a matter of public concern, there should be a presumption in favor of public knowledge, overcome only when there is a specific showing that a particular interest outweighs the minimal or nonexistent public interest in certain information.
Finally, the right to be forgotten is unworkable because there is really only one of two possible results: (1) a country's own law regarding privacy is applied worldwide, which creates a "lease common denominator" situation with regard to free expression or (2) it is applied in just one country but is fundamentally ineffective because the information will be accessible elsewhere.
With every new country or jurisdiction that adopts the right to be forgotten, there exists a greater chance that a state or local jurisdiction here (or even the federal government) considers taking similar steps. Granted, the First Amendment and federal statutes we have in the United States would pose a barrier to this, but we want to make sure we have that "buffer zone" against having the law introduced, and possibly passed, anywhere in the United States.