Google: Use this tool if you want your search query quashed Google is now offering European Union netizens a hastily thrown together online form they can fill in to submit requests for certain types of links to be removed from the ad giant's search index. It comes after the EU's highest court ruled earlier this month that Google can be held responsible for the type of personal data …
Because the original websites do not collate, process and publish personal data. Example there are credit reference agencies that collate someone's credit history, and court judgements. They then supply a report of such to paying clients and remove material after a certain length of time according to law. Just because a Google search engine does the same by trawling websites. How it obtains the data does not make it any less of a data processor than the credit reference agencies.
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They're inserting little memes in everybody's mind
So Google's shills can shriek there whenever they're inclined
To summarise the ruling:
- The source will not redact. It's protected by media archive law (and wants to remain indexed by Google)
- The source can remain Googleable.
- The user can remain Googleable.
- Except that, when you Google that user, *that* source may not appear in *those* results. It *can* appear in *other* results.
> "How it obtains the data does not make it any less of a data processor than the credit reference agencies"
And that's the really really worrying bit. Credit reference agencies consciously collect and process identities. Google collects data. Text. Scribbles. Bytes, bits, flotsam and jetsam. And now some of those bytes are legally actionable. And they won't know in advance which ones, as there is no HTML markup for 'this text is a *particular* human identity legally actionable in *particular* legislations'.
If you collect human-sourced data, process it and present it with a search function, in a field in which an individual has a reputation they wish to protect, the individual may have a case that you must remove something that causes them reputational harm if it, in their opinion, fulfills the adjudged criteria.
It's not the size of the search engine that brought the ruling, it's the size of the effect on the individual. Specialist fields may have similarly sized effects in smaller engines.
Frankly, it should be illegal to use your real identity on the Internet :)
> provide valid photo ID, such as a copy of their passport or driving licence
Strictly speaking, they are asking for an ID. Or something that looks like it's an ID. Or rather: a scan or photo of something that looks like an ID which may or may not have been doctored.
Whether the name or photo on the electronic copy of the (real or fake) document is actually the person (or their agent) who is asking for this take-down is not something that Google has any way of verifying. Unless they are planning to try mugshot matching against their collection of individuals in photos that someone may have correctly tagged.
One assumes that this is merely a deterrent, rather than any sort of checkable auditable "proof". And that if someone does decide to be a little bit naughty and asks for someone else's (maybe <shock!> not even an EU citizen's) URLs to be removed, then there's nothing really that can be done. Except for Google to email the falsely removed victim and ask "is this you?" Which then just starts the cycle of verfication and validation all over again. Without any absolute proof of anyone's actual identify ever being independently validated.
But it does give Google a nice little stash of supposedly government issued ID documents (gee, I hope they are kept safe!) submitted by people with something to "hide" and a pointer to what it is they want to keep quiet. It would be a real shame if that collection of IDs and hush-ups ever got out. Is this really privacy, or is it actually making things worse?
In the first place, the assumption is that what people want to keep quiet is stuff that shows up when they Google their own name… So it's hardly something that nobody would know about, I guess.
Though the part about wanting Google to stop showing it might be slightly more embarrassing, it's not that big of a deal.
About the ID thing, doesn't Google already sometimes ask for ID to prove your identity? I remember something like that…
Send government approved biometric image to the world's largest and mostly unregulated surveillance company? You may get the personal information you wanted removed, but you may also help train their facial recognition and you'll provide them with some more very marketable data. Paypal wanted a scanned passport copy to 'prove' my ID but accepted a photoshopped version. Another company wanted my driving licence number, which puzzled me when I'd not previously supplied it, and they informed me it was wrong. Either I'd given it previously & mistyped it or there's already too much data sharing.
Yes it is: Section 1, subsection 1, third sentence of the German law regarding the national identity card and section 18, subsection 3 of the German law regarding passports. Just because it happens does not mean it is legal: http://www.datenschutzbeauftragter-info.de/nicht-bemerkt-personalausweis-kopieren-verboten/
No surprise here. They are being made to do something they don't want, so they will throw something together and make it hard to find. They have complied. As far as needing an ID, what did you think would happen, no seriously, no smart ass remark here, but what did you think, it would be on their home page and you simply submit a name and that person disappears?
I'm predicting a healthy number of takedown requests will soon have been sent in by someone with some Photoshop skills using the following identities:
and not forgetting
My thinking is, its not an "all or nothing" take down. The point was that someone wanted some information taken down from many years ago, not everything about themselves.
Kinda like if an actress gets a picture or a topic posted about an action all over the web, she can have that removed from search, but not everything else about herself.
I could be wrong though, just my interpretation.
The decision clearly makes is clear there is a valid public interest defense, hence google saying
"as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information - for example, information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials."
Ultimately Google have the right to refuse to comply to the nicely committed request in the form for whatever reason they wish, the requester can then take them to court to get a judge to decide what is in the public interest. Of course that relies on the human (?) at google realizing that their might be a public interest and caring enough to reject the request - it would be interesting to see whether this happens or not in reality.
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