The EU Proposal for a General Data Protection Regulation and the roots of the right to be forgotten

Computer Law and Security Review

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 2013, Pages 229-235

  Mantelero, Alessandro ^a  

^a POLITECNICO DI TORINO   (Italy)

Author keywords

Directive 95 46 EC; General Data Protection Regulation; Right to be forgotten

Indexed keywords

COURT DECISIONS; DIRECTIVE 95/46/EC; GENERAL DATA PROTECTION REGULATIONS; LEGAL FRAMEWORKS; LEGAL SCHOLARS; REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES; RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN;

LAWS AND LEGISLATION;

EID: 84877774444     PISSN: 02673649     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.clsr.2013.03.010     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Lindon; TGI Paris, 25mars 1987,Dalloz Sirey, 1988, p. 198;
2. TGI Paris, 4November1987,Dalloz Sirey, 1988, p. 199;
3. see alsoCAVersailles,14 sept. 1989,Gaz. Pal., 1990, 1, somm. p. 123;
4. but seeCass. 1re civ., 20nov.1990, J.C.P. G, 1992, II,p. 21908
5. Ravanas. See alsoCOSTAZ, Le droit à l'oubli,Gaz.Pal. 1995, 2, p.961 et seqq., at p. 961-963
6. LETTERON, Le droit à l'oubli, Rev. droit public. science politique 1996, pp. 385 et seqq.;
7. RIGAUX, La protection de la vie privée et des autres biens de la personnalité, Bruxelles-Paris,1990, at p.463.
8. e.g. the followingcasesdecidedbyItaliancourts: Trib.Roma, 20November 1996, inGiust. civ. , 1997, I, pp. 1979 sqq.;
9. Pret. Chieri, 3 January 1990, Dir. informaz. e informat., 1990, pp. 523 et sqq.;
10. Pret. Roma, 25 January 1979, in Dir. aut., 1979, pp. 69 et sqq., Pret.Roma, 7November 1986, Dir. informaz. e informat., 1987, pp. 671
11. sqq. See alsoMANTELERO, Il costo della privacy tra valore della persona e ragione d'impresa,Milano, 2007, at p. 14 et sqq.;
12. BESSONE-GIACOBBE (a cura di), Il diritto alla riservatezza in Italia ed in Francia.
13. Due esperienze a confronto, Padova, 1988;
14. DOGLIOTTI, Il diritto alla riservatezza inItalia e inFrancia: orientamentidottrinali e giurisprudenziali, Dir. informaz. e informat., 1985,pp.533
15. sqq; CENDON, Profili della tutela della vita privata in Francia, Riv. dir. civ., 1982, I, pp. 76 et sqq.
16. GAMBARO, Falsa luce agli occhi del pubblico (False Light in the public eye), Riv. dir. civ., 1981, I, pp. 84 et sqq.
17. See Trib. civ. Seine, 16 juin 1858, in D.P., 1858.3.62. See also HAUCH, Protecting Private Facts in France: the Warren & Brandeis Torts is Alive and Well and Flourishing in Paris, 68 TUL. L. REV. 1219, 1227 (1994); RIGAUX, La protection de la vie privée et des autres biens de la personnalité, Bruxelles- Paris, 1990; CONTAMINE-RAYNAUD, Le secret de la vie privée, in Y. LOUSSOUARN, P. LAGARDE (sous la direction de), L'information en droit privé, Paris, 1978, pp. 403 et sqq.; LINDON, Dictionnaire juridique des droit de la personnalité, Paris, 1974, at p. 10 et sqq.
18. See BARBAS, The Death of the Public Disclosure Tort: A Historical Perspective, 22 YALE J.L. & HUMAN. 171 (2010). Free speech in US law is based on the First Amendment, which provides that "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press"; see New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964). It is worth pointing out that in many cases the right to privacy does not conflict, but supports freedom of speech, such as with the confidentiality of communications.
19. See ROSEN, The Right to Be Forgotten, 64 STAN. L. REV. ONLINE 88 (Feb. 13, 2012), http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/sites/default/files/ online/topics/64-SLRO-88.pdf.
20. Privacy, 48 CAL. L. REV. 383, 392-398 (1960). The privacy torts in US law originates from WARREN & BRANDEIS, The Right to Privacy, 4 HARV. L. REV. 193 (1890), one of the most influential law journal articles ever published. Privacy torts are usually described in four distinct torts: intrusion upon seclusion, public disclosure of private fact, false light and appropriation. This subdivision was made by PROSSER, Privacy, 48 CAL. L. REV. 383, 389 (1960) and then substantially adopted in the Restatement (Second) of Tort x 652D, which considers public disclosure of private fact when "one who gives publicity to a matter concerning the private life of another is subject to liability to the other for invasion of his privacy, if the matter publicized is of a kind that (a) would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, and (b) is not of legitimate concern to the public". Theoretically this tort has a narrower application than the right to be forgotten, since it regards "invasion of his privacy if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person" and not any kind of disclosure of past events; see PROSSER, Privacy, 48 CAL. L. REV. 383, 389 (1960) ("The public disclosure of private facts, and putting the plaintiff in a false light in the public eye, both concern the interest in reputation, and move into the field occupied by defamation"). However, the European case law concerning the droit à l'oubli usually refers to episodes of individual life having a negative characterization and, in this sense, the difference between these two models seem to be less relevant. It is also worth pointing out that the requirement of offensiveness has been introduced by Prosser while the original theoretical definition of Warren and Brandeis did not require it, see ZIMMERMAN, Requiem for a Heavyweight: A Farewell to Warren and Brandeis's Privacy Tort, 68 CORNELL L. REV. 291, 295 (1983).
21. Melvin v. Reid, 297 P. 91 (Cal. App. 1931); Sidis v. F-R Publishing Corporation 113 F.2d 806 (2d Cir. 1940), affirming 34 F. Supp. 19 (S.D. N.Y. 1938).
22. At the age of eleven, Mr Sidis lectured to distinguished mathematicians on the subject of Four-Dimensional Bodies and when he was sixteen he graduated from Harvard College.
23. See WARREN & BRANDEIS, The Right to Privacy, 4 HARV. L. REV. 193, 214-216 (1890).
24. SeeWarner v. Times-Mirror Co. 193 Cal. App. 2d 111, 14 Cal. Rptr. 208 (1961) (involving the invasion of the right to privacy of a public personage).
25. Courtshadset forth criteria for determiningwhetheranincident is newsworthy, considering the following aspects: the social value of the facts published, the depth of the article's intrusion into ostensibly private affairs, and the extent to which the party voluntarily acceded to a position of public notoriety. See Kapellas v. Kofman 1 Cal. 3d 20 (1969) (involving the invasion of the privacy of the relatives of a candidate for public office); Briscoe v. Reader's Digest Association, Inc. 4 Cal. 3d 529 (1971); Diaz v. Oakland Tribune, Inc. 139 Cal. App. 3d 118 (1983) (involving the publication on a newspaper of some information concerning a sex-change operation made by a student elected student body president of a college). See also SOLOVE, The Virtues of Knowing Less: Justifying Privacy Protections Against Disclosure, 53 DUKE L. J. 967, 1001 (2003).
26. See Diaz v. Oakland Tribune, supra at fn. 13; Briscoe v. Reader's Digest Association, Inc., supra at fn. 10, ("The right to know and the right to have others not know are, simplistically considered, irreconcilable. But the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment do not require total abrogation of the right to privacy. The goals sought by each may be achieved with a minimum of intrusion upon the other."). See also SOLOVE, The Virtues of Knowing Less: Justifying Privacy Protections Against Disclosure, 53 DUKE L. J. 967, 977-1000 (2003), on the balancing position between free speech and privacy; the author also expressed criticisms against the different "absolutist" approach that does not admit limits to the use of information constituting speech.
27. See, e.g. the following cases decided by Italian courts: Trib. Roma, 25 May 1985, in Dir. aut., 1986, pp. 184 sqq.; Trib. Roma, 8 November 1996, in Giust. civ., 1997, I, pp. 1979 sqq.; Pret. Roma, 25 January 1979, supra at fn. 3. See also, on the Quebec case law, TRUDEL, L'oubli en tant que droit et obligation dans les systèmes juridiques civilistes, http://www. chairelrwilson.ca/cours/drt6913/Notes %20oubli3808.pdf.
28. See Restatement 2d, Torts, x 652D, comment k. See also Diaz v. Oakland Tribune, supra at fn. 13.
29. See Briscoe v. Reader's Digest Association, Inc., supra at fn. 10 (involving the publication of an account of the plaintiff convicted eleven years earlier).
30. See VOLOKH, Freedom of Speech and Information Privacy: The Troubling Implications of a Right to Stop People from Speaking About You, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1051, 1090-1093 (2000), which expressed criticism about this decision.
31. See Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn 420 U.S. 469 (1975) (involving the broadcast of a deceased rape victim's name during a news report);
32. Howard v. Des Moines Register & Tribune Co. 283 N. W.2d 289 (Iowa 1979) (involving the disclosure in a newspaper of the story of a woman sterilized against her wishes while she was confined in an institution); Virgil v. Time Inc. 527 F.2d 1122 (9th Cir. 1975) (involving the publication of private facts of a Californian body surfer); Uranga v. Federated Publications, Inc. 67. P.3d 29 (Idaho 2003) (involving the publication of an article containing a photographic representation of a forty-year-old document from a court file accusing a man of homosexual activity). See also Restatement of torts x 867 comment C (1939).
33. See Florida Star v. B.J.F, 491 U.S. 524 (1989).
34. Criticisms has been expressed by SOLOVE, The Virtues of Knowing Less: Justifying Privacy Protections Against Disclosure, 53 DUKE L. J. 967, 992 (2003), when the author observes that "If the interest of the speaker or listener is defined in terms of self-determination and autonomy, the interest of the harmed individual can be conceptualized in similar termsdas an assault on selfdetermination and autonomy. There is no clear reason why the autonomy of speakers or listeners should prevail over that of the harmed individuals"; see also SOLOVE, A Taxonomy of Privacy, 154 U. PA. L. REV. 477, 532-533 (2006). See ZIMMERMAN, Requiem for a Heavyweight: A Farewell to Warren and Brandeis's Privacy Tort, 68 CORNELL L. REV. 291, 301-303, 350-358 (1983) on the difficulty to define the privilege of newsworthiness.
35. See BARBAS, The Death of the Public Disclosure Tort: A Historical Perspective, 22 YALE J.L. & HUMAN. 171 (2010); GOUNALAKIS, Privacy and the Media. A Comparative Perspective, Mü nchen, 2000, at pp. 25 et sqq. and at pp. 48 et sqq.; WHITMAN, The Two Western Cultures of Privacy: Dignity versus Liberty, 113 YALE L. J. 1151, 1209 (2004); EPSTEIN, Privacy, Publication, and the First Amendment: The Dangers of First Amendment Exceptionalism, 52 STANFORD LAW REVIEW 1003, 1015-1017, 1047 (2000); Hauch, Protecting Private Facts in France: the Warren & Brandeis Torts is Alive and Well and Flourishing in Paris, 68 TUL. L. REV. 1219, 1227 (1994); WACKS, Personal Information. Privacy and the Law, 154-177 (1989); ZIMMERMANN, Requiem for a Heavyweight: A Farewell to Warren and Brandeis's Privacy Tort, 68 CORNELL L. REV. 291, 326-341, 365 (1983); PROSSER, Privacy, 48 CAL. L. REV. 383, 410-419 (1960). Different North-American legal scholars have expressed criticism against limits to disclosure of true personal information: see VOLOKH, Freedom of Speech and Information Privacy: The Troubling Implications of a Right to Stop People from Speaking About You, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1051, 1090-1095 (2000); but see SCHWARTZ, Eugene Volokh's First Amendment Jurisprudence, 52 STAN. L. REV. 1559 (2000). See also EMERSON, The Right of Privacy and Freedom of the Press
36. HARV. C.R.-C.L. L. REV. 329, 346-348, 359-360 (1979); EPSTEIN, Privacy, Property Rights, and Misrepresentations, 12 GA. L. REV. 455, 472-473 (1978).
37. See Restatement 2d, Torts, x 652D.
38. See, inter alia, SOLOVE, The Virtues of Knowing Less: Justifying Privacy Protections Against Disclosure, 53 DUKE L. J. 967, 1053-1063 (2003) and SOLOVE, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet, New Haven-London, 2007.
39. Both the rules admit specific exceptions for historical, statistical or scientific purposes, giving adequate safeguards.
40. See Article 6 of the Directive 95/46/EC.
41. See BEZANSON, The right to Privacy Revisited: Privacy, News, and Social Change, 1890-1990, 80 CAL. L. REV. 1133, 1150-1151, 1168 (1992), on the new paradigm of the right to privacy in the modern age and the relevance assumed by the individual choice and control over data.
42. See respectively Article 6(1), 7(a), 12 (b), 14 of the Directive 95/ 46/EC. With regard to the last Article 14, the proposed new definition of the right to object seems to offer a wider protection, see Article 19 of the EU Proposal.
43. See Recital (54) in the preamble to the EU Proposal.
44. See Article 17 (9) of the EU Proposal.
45. See also Recital (121) in the preamble to the EU Proposal.
46. See Article 17 (2) of the EU Proposal.
47. See BEZANSON, The right to Privacy Revisited: Privacy, News, and Social Change, 80 CAL. L. REV. 1133, 1140-1143 (1992), about the effect on the original idea of privacy of the changes in the control of information (and more generally on society) occurred in the lapse of time from 1890 to the 1990s, although in a pre-Internet era.