Public conversation needed on right to be forgotten: Google Canada

OTTAWA — Before any right to be forgotten rules are instituted in Canada, there needs to be a fulsome public discussion, Colin McKay, head of public policy and government relations at Alphabet Inc.’s Google Canada, told parliamentarians Thursday. McKay told the House of Commons ethics committee, which is studying the Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents Act (PIPEDA), that “part of the challenge is that this right has been created in lieu of having a serious civic conversation about when information should become opaque to users.” In the European Union, a 2014 court ruling began requiring search engines to remove information that is “inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive” upon request, though not all such requests are granted. The question of whether Canada should follow with similar measures is being discussed as part of the committee’s PIPEDA review. “It’s not just a question about deliberation as an element of a possible revision to PIPEDA,” McKay added. “It’s actually a full dialogue around what do we expect in a democratic society around free expression and the retention of records the retention of information about people in the context of both legal and public proceedings.” McKay laid out examples of what these conversations would entail, including whether there should be a time limits imposed on the publication of certain information, such as “administrative judicial information," adding “it’s a difficult role for the private sector to be the adjudicator on that.” Former interim privacy commissioner Chantal Bernier suggested to the same committee in February that it consider a right to be forgotten provision, while the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) said that a right to be forgotten provision would create a burden on wireless companies. While there is no right to be forgotten in Canadian legislation, the question has recently been considered in the courts. The Supreme Court is currently deliberating on a case involving a company that is requesting Google wipe the search results of another company that it claims is infringing on its products. And earlier this year, a Federal Court judge ordered a foreign website to be taken down and some of its content removed from search engines.

Public conversation needed on right to be forgotten: Google Canada

Brief | June 2, 2017

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Public conversation needed on right to be forgotten: Google Canada

Brief | June 2, 2017

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