Google must remove search results if users can prove it is inaccurate, EU court rules

LUXEMBOURG - Alphabet unit Google must remove data from online search results if users can prove it is inaccurate, Europe's top court said on Thursday.

Free speech advocates and supporters of privacy rights have clashed over people's right to be forgotten online, meaning that they should be able to remove their digital traces from the internet.

Two executives from a group of investment companies who had asked Google to remove search results linking their names to certain articles criticising the group's investment model were involved in the case before the Court of Justice of the European Union CJEU.

They wanted Google to remove thumbnail photos of them from search results. The company said it did not know if the information in the articles was accurate or not.

A German court sought advice from the CJEU on the balance between the right to be forgotten and the right to freedom of expression and information.

The operator of a search engine must de-reference information found in the referenced content where the person requesting de-referencing proves that such information is manifestly inaccurate, the Court of Justice of the European Union said.

The proof does not have to come from a judicial decision against website publishers, but users need to provide evidence that can be expected to be required to find, according to judges.

Google said that the links and thumbnails in question were no longer available through web search and image search, and that the content had been offline for a long time.

Since 2014, we have worked hard to enforce the right to be forgotten in Europe, and to strike a balance between people's right of access to information and privacy, a spokesman said.

In 2014, the same court enshrined the right to be forgotten, saying people could ask search engines like Google to remove irrelevant information from web results that appear under searches for their names.

The decision was preceded by landmark EU privacy rules that went into effect in 2018 and state that the right to be forgotten is excluded when the processing of personal data is necessary for the exercise of the right of information.