Context: Recently, a plea has been filed in Delhi High Court to exercise the Right of Being Forgotten.

About Right to be Forgotten

• It falls under the purview of an individual’s right to privacy, which is governed by the Personal Data Protection Bill that is yet to be passed by Parliament.
• It goes in sync with the “Right to Privacy”, which is an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution, which concerns the right to life.
• In 2017, the court said that the right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution.

Right to be Forgotten and Personal Data Protection Bill

• The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha in 2019 and it aims to set out provisions meant for the protection of the personal data of individuals.
• Clause 20 under Chapter V of this draft bill titled “Rights of Data Principal” mentions the “Right to be Forgotten”.
• It states that the “data principal (the person to whom the data is related) shall have the right to restrict or prevent the continuing disclosure of his personal data by a data fiduciary”.
• Under the Right to be forgotten, users can de-link, limit, delete or correct the disclosure of their personal information held by data fiduciaries.
• A data fiduciary means any person, including the State, a company, any juristic entity or any individual who alone or in conjunction with others determines the purpose and means of processing of personal data.
• The sensitivity of the personal data and information cannot be determined independently by the person concerned, but will be overseen by the Data Protection Authority (DPA).
• The draft bill gives some provisions under which a data principal can seek that his data be removed, but his or her rights are subject to authorization by the Adjudicating Officer who works for the DPA.

Right to be Forgotten in other countries

• The Center for Internet and Society notes that the “right to be forgotten” gained prominence when the matter was referred to the Court of Justice of European Union (CJEC) in 2014 by a Spanish Court.
• In the European Union (EU), the right to be forgotten empowers individuals to ask organisations to delete their personal data.
• It is provided by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a law passed by the 28-member bloc in 2018.

According to the EU GDPR’s website, the right to be forgotten appears in Recitals 65 and 66 and in Article 17 of the regulation, which states:

• The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data concerning him or her without undue delay and the controller shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay.
• The EU’s highest court ruled in 2019 that the ‘right to be forgotten’ under European law would not apply beyond the borders of EU member states.