Searching for our names on the Internet, even if it is out of curiosity, is something that we all did or are going to do at some point, even if it is out of curiosity. But what happens when we see something about ourselves that we don't like? Who do we turn to?
“My daughter was doing research for school and there we discovered that she could read
a note
from our family that we had not yet told her
: the death of her grandfather,” Valeria tells
Clarín
.
A few years ago, his father-in-law was the victim of a crime during a robbery that was never solved. Although Valeria's daughter, María (10), knows that her grandfather died, she does not know the circumstances of how everything happened. “It seems to us that neither she nor my son are prepared to know how it happened,” she says.
The first thing Valeria tried to do was look for how to delete something from the web, she talked to a lawyer friend, but she couldn't do anything. As best she could, she contacted the media where the note was published. Although her intention was to directly delete the article, at the time she was only able to get the name of her husband.
“It is a note from many years ago, but it still hurts because
there is no justice and there will never be justice
because my husband lost his father in the most unfair way and that cannot be recovered. Of course, I think that the degree of exposure is very high and it bothers us because we don't know how to control it,” she insists.
Can we delete things from the internet?
The most notable cases of recent times in Argentina were those of the host
Natalia De Negri
and the model
María Belén Rodríguez
. The first motivated by the intention that a case of public interest in the '90s should stop appearing in Google results linked to her name. The second, with the aim of having an intimate video removed from pornographic websites. The two ended up being prosecuted and
went to the Supreme Court, which did not agree
with the plaintiffs.
The question arises, then, about what access a person who is not involved in the media and who is not able to afford lawyers for so many years can have to delete content that they do not like from the Internet.
Google is the most popular search engine on the web. When asked by
Clarín
, they explained that the company, both in Argentina and in the world, offers the possibility of deindexing content, that is, preventing it from appearing in search engine results, but not all of it.
“Only when it involves personal information with
illegal content or that has been proven to be false
,” they stressed. Beyond these reasons, you cannot request the removal of anything you want to delete.
Google suggests as a first step to complete the content removal request form. “It requires the
greatest possible specificity
regarding the content that must be removed and must explain how the content is illegal,” they state.
“This form applies to specific legal reasons, which often come from
governments or government entities in accordance with a law
; when the information poses significant risks of identity theft, financial fraud or any other specific harm; complaints for breach of copyright, breach of YouTube community guidelines (such as images of child sexual abuse) among others. And they also include cases in which it is judicially proven that the information is false,” they listed.
Right to be forgotten
Currently, the European Union has a regulation that grants its citizens the
right to be forgotten
, that is, search engines have the obligation to take requests from users who request the deletion of content that negatively affects them. This is because it considers companies responsible for the content that appears in their search engines.
The right to be forgotten has no basis in the Argentine Constitution, nor in the treaties ratified by our Nation, nor in our Data Protection Law. This has been ratified by Supreme Court rulings that protect freedom of expression on legal and public content on the Internet.
However, the Court's ruling in the case of María Belén Rodriguez left open the possibility of conducting a more in-depth analysis and giving the issue parliamentary treatment.
Rodríguez's lawyer in that case was
Martín Leguizamón
, a specialist in computer law, and the first in the country to win a court battle against two large search engines such as Google and Yahoo! by obtaining a ruling that determines that companies have responsibility for the content they enable.
“In cases where a person sees a note or something on the Internet about them and that is of public interest, it cannot be deindexed, because it involves the
right to information and freedom of expression
,” the lawyer explains to
Clarín
.
However, Leguizamón explains that there are exceptions, such as when
photographs of minors
are placed where the best interests of the child must be protected; the dissemination of
intimate videos
without or with a sexual nature, a
photomontage ,
discriminatory
acts
. “In these cases, a court order is not necessary because the search engine is obliged to deindex,” he explained.
What the lawyer usually does is intimate both the search engine and the page that created the content. “Because if the search engine blocks it, the site will continue to have that content. So, if the original creator of that material that attacks the honor and honor of people deletes it, it automatically disappears on the fifth day,” he stated.
“When the search engine decides not to cancel the search results or prevent access to the original content – which is in 95% of the cases because unfortunately for Google there are no manifest and gross illegalities dictated in the ruling of the Court of 2014–, then we must resort to judicial means asking that the
liability standard plus the manifest and gross illegalities of María Belén Rodríguez's ruling
be applied ,” he confirmed.
In cases of public officials who want to request the deletion of information, the situation is completely different. It must be confirmed that these are facts that invade their privacy and have nothing to do with their public function.
“We know that one day we are going to talk about what happened on January 21 that no one forgets. We know
how bad it will be for them to find out
, because even we haven't healed it. For now it was a car accident. For now we believe that life can continue to be beautiful, like the movie, even though every day it is more difficult for us to disguise reality,” says Valeria, with resignation.
MG