Canadians have a right to get certain information about them delisted from search engine results, Canada’s privacy commissioner has found.
In a release published Wednesday, the office of Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne found that public listings about individuals that could pose “a risk of harm to a person’s safety or dignity” can be taken down, should that risk outweigh the information’s public-interest value.
The finding came out of a 2017 complaint against Google, filed by a man who had once faced a criminal charge that was dropped shortly after.
In the years to follow, news coverage of the original charge remained readily available in search results associated with his name, bringing on what he said was “direct harm, such as physical assault, lost employment opportunities, and severe social stigma,” the release reads.
According to the commissioner, complying with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) required Google to de-list the offending articles, removing them from search results for the individual’s name.
This does not extend to the articles themselves, which could continue to exist publicly on third-party websites. As well, those articles may still appear in the results for other search terms that don’t directly name the individual.
The commissioner’s office says the ruling required a “careful balancing” of privacy rights against the right to freedom of expression.
The release notes that examples of details relevant to de-listing decisions may include that the information concerned a minor or someone who was not a public figure, or a matter unrelated to public debate, that significant time had passed or that the information was no longer accurate or up to date.
According to Canada’s privacy commissioner, Google has “declined to implement” the recommendation to de-list the articles in question, and from early in the lengthy investigation into the 2017 complaint, the search provider “questioned the Commissioner’s jurisdiction, suggesting that its search engine was not bound by the obligations set out under PIPEDA.”
Subsequent rulings by the Federal Court of Canada and Federal Court of Appeals affirmed that Google was, in fact, subject to PIPEDA rules, the release notes.
“The Commissioner indicated that his Office is considering all available options to secure Google’s compliance with the Act,” it reads.
Is the internet forever?
Similar rules, sometimes dubbed the "right to be forgotten," have existed internationally for more than a decade.
Under a 2014 European Court of Justice ruling, individuals are empowered to request that “inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive” content about them be de-listed in searches for their name, unless outweighed by that information’s value to the public interest.
The precedent was later made law under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and non-EU countries including Russia, Turkiye and Serbia have also instituted similar protections.
Clarification
This article has been updated to clarify that the listed details relevant to a de-listing decision were shared by the privacy commissioner's office as general examples, not specific to the complaint.
