TERRITORIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE “RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN”
JASNA ČOŠABIĆABSTRACT. There is a debate among scholars going on about the implications of the judgment of the Court of Justice (“ECJ”) establishing the “right to be forgotten,” in several spheres. Some argue about the nature of the right to be forgotten, i.e. whether it belongs to right to privacy or to right to data protection or somewhere in between. Others argue about the intention of Directive 95/46/EC2 (“the Directive 95”), i.e. whether it was able to predict looking forward to almost 20 years in future, the overwhelming nature of internet and the easiness of the access and dissemination of information therein. However, the greatest concern remains with the effect that this judgment will have on the operation of world search engines such as Google, and over its territorial scope. This paper shall first look to certain extent into the nature of the right to be forgotten with a view to two most influential human rights instruments in Europe, i.e. the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”) and the EU Charter, however only with the aim of determining its practical implications especially with regard to bringing the said judgment into life. The question of all questions remains the territorial implementation of the right to be forgotten, overlapping with the personal approach towards the citizens of the EU. Having in mind the global effect of internet, can the effect of the ECJ judgment be limited only to servers located in the EU? If so, can a person be forgotten in the EU, but still remembered in the USA and elsewhere? Can the “right to be forgotten” be achieved only partially? Does the nature of that right allow that? pp. 53–64
JEL codes: D63; L86
Keywords: right to be forgotten; privacy; cyber law; internet; territoriality; data protection
How to cite: Čošabić, Jasna (2015), “Territorial Implications of the ‘Right to Be Forgotten,’” Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management 3(2): 53–64.
Received 25 March 2015 • Received in revised form 23 June 2015
Accepted 23 June 2015 • Available online 18 November 2015