Since the end of May 2014, it has been possible to submit a request to Google to remove incriminating or irrelevant information from search engine results. Initially, this option was not available, but following the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the case of a Spanish man, the court ruled that storing harmful personal data constitutes a violation of European privacy legislation.
The Court took into account in this decision that search engines are capable of aggregating results and thereby enable internet users to form a profile of an individual. Connections established by the search engine would not be linked, or would be linked only barely, if at all, without these results.
It is now possible to submit a request to have data removed from search results, but how exactly does this work?
Google's procedure
Google has a policy posted online, in which it is described which requests are granted and which matters they deem burdensome / harmful. Via a form This request can be submitted on the Google site.
Following a request, it is assessed to what extent matters can be deemed harmful or incriminating. Examples of harmful data include: credit card numbers, national identification numbers, bank account numbers, but also erroneous information such as involvement in a crime where it was later determined that the person in question was innocent.
Google therefore does not simply grant a free pass to remove all kinds of things. Furthermore, for such a request, they ask for a copy of proof of identity to ensure that the person in question is making the request.
Requests in the Netherlands
By now, around 34.000 of these requests have already been made in the Netherlands. Of these, approximately 30% have been removed. 70% of the requests were ultimately rejected by Google. Most requests concerned Facebook results and YouTube videos.