This document discusses the right to be forgotten in European and American law. It argues that the right to be forgotten has roots in European privacy laws like droit à l’oubli and is not an entirely new concept. While American law has addressed similar issues, European laws focus more on balancing privacy with the public's right to know about individuals. The proposed EU General Data Protection Regulation recognizes individuals' right to have their personal data erased but does not change the existing balance between privacy and media reporting established in European laws and courts.

1. The Fifth Northumbria Information Rights Conference:
Changing Notions of Privacy
Gateshead, UK,1 May 2013
The right to be forgotten and the media: an
existing balance. The European experience.
Avv. Alessandro Mantelero
Aggregate Professor of Private Law at the Polytechnic University of Turin
Faculty Fellow at the NEXA-Center for Internet & Society (Polytechnic
University of Turin)
Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford)

2. A. Mantelero © 2013
American scholars and companies expressed criticism about the “right to
be forgotten” (EU Proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation,
Article 17)
✔
the right to be forgotten as a new right
✔
the right to be forgotten as a European concept
✔
the right to be forgotten as a significant limit to freedom of expression
These comments disregard the entire European legal framework on the
protection of individuals, its historical evolution and the American case law
The original idea of the right to be forgotten is pre-existing the EU Proposal
and could not be considered a European concept and unknown in
American law.
The right to be forgotten and the media: an existing
balance. The European experience.

3. A. Mantelero © 2013
The European notion of the right to be forgotten draws its origins from droit
à l’oubli (France and European countries).
In Europe the legal protection of the events of an individual life, both
private and public, developed in autonomy, and were not influenced by the
North-American experience.
The media affects private life in two different ways:
✔
by revealing events/information that should remain private
✔
by publicising events whose social/political relevance prevails over their
private nature
The droit à l’oubli represents a limit to media activities, forbidding press
and TV to make public, once again, aspects of private life that were the
object of public interest in the past.
The notion of the right to be forgotten is based on the fundamental need of
an individual to determine the development of their life in an autonomous
way.
The right to be forgotten and the media: an existing
balance. The European experience.

4. A. Mantelero © 2013
The right to be forgotten in the U.S.
✔
Melvin v. Reid
✔
Sidis v. F-R Publishing Corporation
✔
Briscoe v. Reader's Digest Association, Inc.
The US model
✔
wide interpretation of legitimate public concern
✔
broad interpretation of the newsworthiness privilege (First Amendment)
✔
emphasis on the offensiveness of published information
We can not consider the right to be forgotten a corpus alienum in US law
and an exclusively European concept
The right to be forgotten and the media: an existing
balance. The European experience.

5. A. Mantelero © 2013
The right to be forgotten an the EU legislation
✔
Directive 95/45/EC (articles 6, 12)
✔
EU Proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation (article 17)
Directive 95/45/EC (article 6)
personal data should be
✔
collected for specified purposes
✔
“not further processed in a way incompatible with those purposes”
✔
kept in a form which permits the identification of data subjects “for no
longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the data were
collected or for which they are further processed”
These rules are focused on the different parameters concerning the length
of the time of retention and the processing purposes, which in the media
context should be adequately evaluated.
The balance between the maintenance and the erasure of the data derives
from the legal boundaries defined by the courts in the case law concerning
the right to be forgotten.
The right to be forgotten and the media: an existing
balance. The European experience.

6. A. Mantelero © 2013
Directive 95/46/EC (article 12)
✔
a wider range of application (right to obtain the erasure)
✔
erasure due to data retention in contrast with the law or due to the
original or supervening lack of the reasons that legitimate the processing
of information.
EU Proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation (article 17)
✔
not a revolutionary change to the existing rules
✔
the article 17 recognizes “the right to obtain from the controller the
erasure of personal data”, in a manner analogous to the Article 12 of the
Directive 95/46/CE
✔
the article 17 is more analytical in defining the right
The innovative aspect of the proposed rules does not regard the right
granted to the individual, but the different rules concerning the extension of
the protection offered in relation to the new electronic ways of
disseminating information.
The right to be forgotten and the media: an existing
balance. The European experience.

7. A. Mantelero © 2013
There is an overlapping of concepts defining the right to be forgotten as
the right of the data subject to withdraw their consent to data processing.
In cases concerning the droit à l’oubli a question regarding withdrawal
does not exist
The representation of the right to be forgotten as the right to have personal
data completely removed is consistent with the notion of droit à l’oubli, but
it has a wider scope:
✔
the erasure is not only related to the loss of interest in past events, but
also to other situations (e.g. wrongful or illicit data processing) that do not
concern the balance between media and individual life.
The article 17 of the proposed Regulation does not consider the right to be
forgotten from the media perspective, as does the droit à l’oubli (explicit
exception)
The right to be forgotten and the media: an existing
balance. The European experience.

8. A. Mantelero © 2013
The EU Proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation and the roots
of the “right to be forgotten”, Computer Law & Security Review, XXX, 2013
(forthcoming)
Alessandro Mantelero
http://nexa.polito.it/people/amantelero
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=318
http://staff.polito.it/alessandro.mantelero
alessandro.mantelero@polito.it
@mantelero
The right to be forgotten and the media: an existing
balance. The European experience.