Hello all,
I've been reading up on the ECJ's (European Court of Justice) decision on Tuesday regarding the "right to be forgotten" and have been considering the impact it could have on our community. Apparently, it was ruled that "data brokers", such as google and search engines, will now have to comply with removing certain private information concerning EU citizens if they are prompted to do so. According to the decision it applies to information that is old, irrelevant, or inacurate information. This means that sites like Google must remove a link to a story that is deemed to be in one of those categories, if they are prompted to do so, or else it will face legal repressions. Interesting enough, that same rule doesn't seem to apply to the source itself, only search engines from what I can tell; although, "data broker" is a term that can be defined in different ways. If you want further info, I've attached a few stories that I've read regarding the issue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/technology/google-should-erase-web-links-to-some-personal-data-europes-highest-court-says.html?hpw&rref=technology&_r=0http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/13/us-eu-google-dataprotection-idUSBREA4C07120140513http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27394751http://mashable.com/2014/05/13/right-to-be-forgotten-europe-google/Before I get into the potential benefits this could have for the transgender community, I would like to share some concerns. The first problem being that there seems to be little information as to how this will be enforced. Right now it seems like a buerocratic mess regarding what information can be removed. Plus, there is the concern of the balance of the public good and this right. How will it be measured in each case? Is there ever going to be a clear standard? And what if this is abused for people to remove information that is in the public good like a criminal record or a shady past of a public figure? And why only search engines? All they do is index the information, they aren't the publishing the info themselves? And what about internal search engines, will they apply? At the end of the day, I come at this with a typical American perspective and want to be as conservative as possible when limiting free speech, expression and journalism.
However, if it's regulated properly (which I doubt), I think it could do some good. Think of all the irrelevant facebook posts and pictures from the past that haunt people as they go on. People shouldn't have to have their lives ruined by something that was private and irrelevant. Our need for gossip doesn't trump their own privacy and right to move on from their past. That is something that I think is good when it's measured properly and leans on a more conservative side.
That's where I feel this brings up some questions with the transgender community. Let's say someone wants to erase their past, so that no one can know they are trans. They may be able to have a better sense of privacy and may be able to secure this information from being searchable. Personally, I think that's great. It's not in the public interest for someone to know another person is trans. If someone wants to keep that hidden, then this ruling may aid them in that. Allow them to move on with their life after transition. And that may even help prevent people from being outed as they go on. Sure, right now it only applies to search engines, but that's where people get their information. I think for our community, this does a lot more good than bad, even if I fear the wider implications that it could have.
In any case, I wanted to share this and hear from others about their feelings on the ruling. It seems to be an interesting precedent that could impact our own community to some degree, but I'm still mixed. That's why I want to consider different perspectives and hear what other's have to say regarding the ruling and it's impacts to both trans community and society in general. So, what say you? It should lead to an interesting dialogue.
P.S. Feel free to correct any errors in my train of thought. Being an American, I'm not too knowledgeable on EU law and it's wider implications, so forgive any confusion or misunderstandings on my part.
