A new law promising internet users the "right to be forgotten" will be proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday, January 25. It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted and firms will have to comply unless there are "legitimate" grounds to retain it, BBC News reported.
The move is part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the commission's 1995 Data Protection Directive. Some tech firms have expressed concern about the reach of the new bill. Details of the revised law were unveiled by the Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding, at the Digital Life Design (DLD) conference in Munich.
A spokesman for the commissioner clarified that the action was designed to help teenagers and young adults manage their online reputations. "These rules are particularly aimed at young people as they are not always as aware as they could be about the consequence of putting photos and other information on social network websites, or about the various privacy settings available," said Matthew Newman.
He noted that this could cause problems later if the users had no way of deleting embarrassing material when applying for jobs. However, he stressed that it would not give them the right to ask for material such as their police or medical records to be deleted. Although the existing directive already contains the principle of "data minimisation", Mr Newman said that the new law would reinforce the idea by declaring it "a right".
Other measures in the bill include an obligation on all firms to notify users and the authorities about data lost through hacking attacks or other breaches "as soon as possible". The commissioner said that firms would have to explicitly seek people's permission to use data about them and could not proceed on the basis of "assumed" consent in situations where approval was required.
Her proposed law says that internet users must also be notified when their data is collected, and be told for what purpose it is being processed and for how long it will be stored. The bill also suggests people must be given easier access to the data held on them, and should have the right to move it to another provider in addition to the right to have it deleted.
However, the commissioner said that she recognised there were some circumstances under which this right would not apply. "The archives of a newspaper are a good example. It is clear that the right to be forgotten cannot amount to a right of the total erasure of history," Ms Reding told DLD delegates.
