REQUESTS TO DELIST THE RESULTS FROM GOOGLE INDEX AND THE RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN 28 August 2020
The effect of the contents about people on the internet on the fundamental rights and freedoms of people is an issue discussed in many legal systems.
In this regard, some studies and opinions have been put forward in our country, and this issue has been brought to the agenda again in terms of personal data protection law with a decision made by the Personal Data Protection Authority.
Google’s Content Removal Policy
The right to be forgotten is defined as the right of a person to request the removal of a news or content about himself on the internet. An important decision made by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) on this matter has been a decision that Google has also taken as a guide on this issue. Accordingly, the CJEU has decided that individuals have the right to request the removal of the results of their queries in search engines. According to this decision, in order to benefit from this right, the results must be insufficient, irrelevant or unnecessary.
In the statement on the official website by Google, it is stated that individuals may request to remove the links that appear in their search results. According to this statement, the evaluation made by Google looks at whether the results contain expired information about the private life of the person, and whether there is a public interest in keeping the information in search results. In addition, Google states that there are many requests made to them in this context and it may take time to evaluate the requests.
As you can see, Google applies the content of the decision made within the scope of the CJEU in filtering and removing the search results. On the other hand, by filtering the search results, Google cuts the link with the original content and the result of the search, but does not have the authority to remove the content on the website. At this point, other ways are needed to remove a content removed from search results from the website where it is located.
The Decision Of The Personal Data Protection Authority
The Personal Data Protection Authority (“Authority”) published its decision regarding applications which were submitted to authority about the searches made by the name and surnames of the data subjects through search engines and which are requested to be evaluated within the scope of the “Right to be Forgotten”, on 17.07.2020.
Accordingly, it is stated that considering that search engines determine the purposes and means of processing the data collected by third parties on the internet, they are accepted as data controller within the scope of the definition in Article 3 of the Law. It is also stated that considering that the operator of the search engine automatically, regularly and systematically finds the information published on the Internet, then organizes personal data in the form of a list of search results, stores it on its servers, discloses it in certain situations and presents it to its users, activities of the search engines are evaluated as 'personal data processing' within the scope of Article 3 of the Law.
In this context, it was stated by the Authority that make a decision for the relevant person's request to remove the results shown in search engines from the index, a balance test should be made between the fundamental rights and freedoms and the benefits that the public will gain from obtaining the information in question, and it should be considered which of the competing interests outweigh.
In this context, the Authority stated that in case the requests of individuals are rejected by the data controller search engines or their requests are not answered, it is possible to apply directly to the judicial remedy while applying to the Personal Data Protection Board.
