Google fined by French data protection authority over ‘right to be forgotten’
On 10th March 2016, the French data protection authority (CNIL) issued the Decision no. 2016-054 in which it fined Google Inc. €100,000 for failing to properly implement the so-called “right to be forgotten”.
The decision is based on the Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“ECJ”) in Costeja v. Google which stated that internet users residing in Europe could ask search engines to delist their personal data. Those whose request to delist Internet links on the “Google Search” engine had been turned down lodged a complaint with the CNIL and after a investigation, Google was asked to delist several results.
In some requests, Google carried out the delisting only on the search engine’s European geographic extensions and therefore, the delisted content in France remained accessible in other non-European countries. In May 2015, the CNIL issued a formal order to the company to extend delisting to all of the extensions since the Chair considered that delisting must be carried out on all of the extensions under the CJEU ruling.
Google stated that a global delisting would disproportionately undermine the freedom of expression and information.
The CNIL answered that the commitment of its decision is to guarantee effective and complete protection of data subjects and sanctions procedure against the company was initiated.