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- Jonason, Patricia, 1968-
(författare)
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Le droit à l'oubli numérique en Suède
- 2017
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Right to be Forgotten in Sweden Google has received about 15,000 requests for delisting regarding Swedish websites. Yet, in more than half of the cases the American search engine operator refused to remove the disputed websites from their results.What kind of help may individuals to whom a request for delisting has been denied expect from public authorities expect from public authorities? In other words, how do the Swedish authorities apply the Google ruling? These are the questions we tackle in this paper, first by focusing on the manner in which the Data Protection Authority, the Datainspektion (DI), deals with the issue; then by looking on how the courts – in the current case, the ordinary judge – handle complaints against search engine operators’ decisions not to delist incriminated URLs.The first section, dedicated to the theme of the right to be delisted and the data protection authority, begins with a brief review of the information provided by the Data Protection Authority’s website on the right to be forgotten and the manner to exercise it. We notice that there is a need for clearer information but that some improvements seem to be underway, not least concerning the right to erasure laid down in the General Data Protection Regulation.The next two parts of Section 1 deal with the twofold procedure initiated in May 2015 by the DI towards Google, following complaints submitted to the Swedish authority. One part of the procedure concerns thirteen individual complaints selected by the DI that the Swedish supervisory authority required Google to review. The second part of the procedure consists of a general investigation of the way the American search engine operator complies with the European case law on the right to be forgotten. In a decision closing these two procedures on May 2nd 2017, the Data Protection Authority, assesses that in five of these cases Google’s reiterated refusal to delist websites from the search results were in breach of the Swedish data protection legislation and requires Google to delist the incriminated websites by August 2nd 2017. Moreover, the Swedish Data Protection Authority makes two recommendations to Google with regard to the procedure its removals-team follows when receiving a request from an individual to remove links. Additionally the DI requires Google to apply the right to be forgotten not only for search results on Google’s Swedish pages, but also on Google’s search engine for other countries that ”have such a relationship to Sweden and to the data subject that they cause an infringement in the privacy of the data subject”. The American search engine operator has three weeks from the date of reception of the decision for lodging an appeal to the administrative court.The second section, entitled The right to be delisted and the ordinary judge, provides an analysis of the first Swedish judgment in the field. The court of first instance of Stockholm, in its decision from May 9th 2016, made upon the appeal of a businessman in the construction sector complaining about the refusal of Google to remove links to webpages publishing critical articles regarding the plaintiff, decided in favor of the search engine operator. We analyse this judgement with a particular focus, first, on the balancing of the interests the judge makes in the present case, as well as on the legality of the data processing, and, second, on the question raised by the defendant on the competence of the ordinary judge to prohibit the continued processing of data. On the first issue, the Swedish authority, taking inter alia into account the role of public figure of the plaintiff and the seriousness of the news outlets which published the incriminated articles, concluded that the interests of Google and third persons to diffuse and access information contained in the articles outweight the right to protection of privacy and the right of data protection of the plaintiff. Consequently, the judge assessed that the data processing wasn’t illegal. On the second issue of the competence of the ordinary judge to order the cessation of the listing of websites, we first review the different opinions on that issue before raising the question of the compliance of the Swedish legal framework in terms of the effectiveness of the application of the European ruling on the right to be delisted.Our general conclusion is that it is too early to give a straightforward appreciation on the way the Swedish authorities apply the right to be forgotten. Indeed, we don’t know how the legally robust decision taken by the DI in May 2017 will impact its policy in the field of the right to be forgotten; will the DI, for instance, endorse more individuals’ complaints? Furthermore, to this date, there has been no decision on the right to be forgotten by the administrative court and only one by an ordinary court. In any case, the absence of obligation for the Datainspektion to forward individual complaints to search engine operators, if combined with a lack of power for the ordinary judge to order a delisting, would raise questions on the effectivness in Sweden of the application of the right to be forgotten.
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