CIPPIC Joins Article 19's CJEU Intervention on Global De-Registration Orders

CIPPIC joined in an intervention (FR) which highlights the negative impact on freedom of expression that can result if the Court of Justice of the European Union endorses global content de-referencing orders. The regulatory action under appeal in C-507/17, Google Inc v Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), arise from an order issued by the French data protection authority (CNIL) which would compel Google to extend its de-referencing of content to protect the privacy of Spanish citizens beyond google.fr. Content removal or de-referencing orders of this nature have the effect of leveraging the global reach of central online intermediaries such as Google in order to apply one nation's laws to the entire world. As a result, other states lose the ability to establish their own standards with respect to critical questions such as, in this instance, addressing the balance between the right to privacy and to freedom of expression.

The specific type of content de-referencing order at issue in Google v CNIL seeks to protect the privacy of individuals by de-referencing their names from certain online articles: when someone searches for 'Alice Dubois', the first search hit that results will no longer be an account of Ms Duboius' 14 year old debt security proceedings. Ms Dubouis can retain some measure of control over how she represents herself to her employers, colleagues, friends—the world. However, in formulating such a right, great caution must be taken to ensure the right balance is struck between the need to protect individual's privacy and the public's right to receive information. Can professionals use this right to remove negative reviews of their products or services? Can those repeatedly convicted of fraud shield their convictions from future perspective 'customers'? Does this right of de-referencing apply to all types of content or just prominently referenced articles that display sensitive information (an individual's sensitive financial information or health condition, for example)? The intervention (which was led by Article 19 and draws on the experience of co-interveners from Canada, Korea, Latin America, the United States, and Member States of the EU) argues that states must be allowed to balancing the important constitutionally protected interests at stake in such questions for themselves, rather than having the question determined by globally applicable content de-referencing orders.

Image credit: Tyler Menezes, "The worst thing about censorship", June 27, 2008, CC-BY-SA 2.0, Flickr