Bradley Partner David Lucas Quoted in Law.com on Impact of UK’s “Right to be Forgotten” Ruling

Bradley attorney David Lucas was quoted in Law.com on a decision from the U.K.’s High Court of Justice, which struck both a simultaneous blow and win for citizens looking to expunge their criminal records from the internet. In NT1 v. Google and NT2 v. Google, the court considered the requests of two businessmen to compel Google to de-index certain websites related to their criminal past, under the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” data privacy principle.

Taking into account the nature of each claimant’s crime, family, work and personal situations, and legal precedents and guidance around the right to be forgotten, the court upheld NT2’s request, but rejected NT1’s. The ruling brought into question how it and other search engines will be able to operate under the EU’s right to be forgotten rules.

But the U.K. court ruling doesn’t necessarily portend how the right to be forgotten will be litigated in the future, nor shed much light on how it will be enforced under the EU’s upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which codifies the principle into statutory law.

Because courts need to take into account the specific situations of those asking for their data to be erased, cases can be “very subjective,” said Lucas. The U.K. court, he added, “basically said for this type of information it has to be done on a case-to-case determination, at what point is that data no longer relevant for the public good versus the private detriment.”

The complete article, “Why the UK’s ‘Right to be Forgotten’ Ruling Has Limited Impact,” appeared in Law.com on April 26, 2018.