The draft “Declaration of internet rights”, drawn up by the Chamber of Deputies Commission, chaired by Stefano Rodotà, has been published on October 13, 2014 and is now at the consultation stage.

Among the rights granted through this document, the right to be forgotten – discussed in Bruxelles with the Google Advisory Council concurrently with the work of the Commission – deserves to be particularly mentioned.

What has been defined “the European tour of Google”, in the main European capitals, moved through a complex of workshop meetings - held from September – with experts, citizens and institutions where the judgment of the European Court of Justice on the right to be forgotten has been discussed.

It is the right to be forgotten in the databases of search engine, when an information or fact is no longer relevant due to its content or to the length of time since its collection.

Pursuant to the article 10 of the draft, every person has the right to obtain the cancellation of own personal data from the search engine’s results; in case of known people or institutional public figures the right may be exercised only in relation to data that not do directly concern the activities or public functions performed by them.

In fairness, the right to be forgotten is rather outdated: before the advent of digital society, this privacy right had been exercised against publishers and journalists, to obtain the removal of the non-current notices damaging to the honour and reputation.

The right to dignity and reputation, however, should be balanced with the right to information, equally important to the first ones.

In relation to this delicate balance, the European Court of Justice has held that: “balance may however depend, in specific cases, on the nature of the information in question and its sensitivity for the data subject’s private life and on the interest of the public in having that information, an interest which may vary, in particular, according to the role played by the data subject in public life”.

The Justice deity which handhelds this balance - in order to determine the prevalence, in the digital world, of the right to be forgotten or the right to information – is represented not a national or European authority or institution, contrary to a widely-held belief, but the search engine operator.

In the opinion of the European Court, the searches in the search engine must be classified as ‘processing’ within the meaning of Directive 95/46, for which the search engine operator is responsible.

As we can see, the European Court, far from recognising a specific duty, has given rise to a total monopoly. Google seized the opportunity to assess the relationship between the right to be forgotten and the right to information, in the sole discretion of an apposite Advisory Council.

Meanwhile, we await comments and opinions of the Data Protection Authority, the users and – given the current business trends – the Privacy Officer!