The right to be forgotten and censored Google indexing for the European market

6.2.2015

Question for written answer E-002070-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Alessia Maria Mosca (S&D)

A ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union has established that any European citizen has the right to ask Google to de-index from its search engine any content concerning himself or herself, provided it is no longer relevant and if it could alter or restrict the person’s right to determine his or her own social image. This is about the famous right to be forgotten. The ‘council of elders’ set up by Google has at last produced a final document. On the most controversial point, which is the territorial scope of de-indexing, the document states that de-indexing will cover all European extensions of the search engine, but not those outside the EU, which is in clear contrast to what was requested by European data protection supervisors (complete removal). This means that Google will offer full indexing in America and ‘censored’ indexing in Europe.

1. Does the Commission not think that this difference in views — the American one, which sees the European Court of Justice ruling as being in absolute violation of freedom of expression, and the European view, whereby the right to privacy and to be forgotten is sanctioned by Directive 95/46/EC (Data Protection Directive) and by case law (Costeja ruling) — represents a violation of European regulations on data protection?

2. What action is the Commission going to take to enforce the obligation to de-index content, including by search engines' extensions outside the EU?