Posted by Philip Martin, senior caseworker at Legal Futures Associate Internet Erasure Ltd [1]
Martin: The right to be forgotten is not censorship
In today’s hyper-documented world, the internet rarely forgets. Yet people do change.
A quiet but growing wave of individuals is fighting back against digital permanence, not for vanity, but rather for dignity and the right to move forward.
They are turning to the ‘right to be forgotten’ (RTBF) – a vital but often misunderstood legal remedy.
This is a legal right, set out in article 17 of UK GDPR, that allows individuals to request the erasure of their data from search engine results pages in the UK and EU.
These applicants are in the main not celebrities or career criminals seeking to hide; they are ordinary people navigating real-world consequences of their name appearing in Google search results – including difficulty finding work or clients, barriers to renting or buying a home, relationships that never get started, mental health struggles, and even threats to personal safety.
The need is widespread:
- One in six UK adults has a criminal record (Ministry of Justice)
- One in eight have been named as a victim of crime (Crime Survey for England and Wales)
- One in nine have been declared bankrupt (Insolvency Service)
- One in 23 have experienced online harassment, cyberbullying, revenge porn or attack sites (Office of National Statistics)
- One in 29 will be reported missing in their lifetime (Missing People charity)
- One in 31 will run a company that enters liquidation (Institute of Directors)
- One in 33 have had embarrassing or reputationally damaging incidents shared online (estimated from Internet Erasure client analysis)
- One in four have had private data like addresses, phone numbers or photos of children published online without their consent (Cifas/Ofcom)
- One in four have experienced ‘sharenting’ – unwanted childhood content published by parents or schools (Ofcom and the Children’s Commissioner)
These categories naturally overlap – they illustrate that nearly everyone will face some form of damaging digital exposure in their lifetime, and some people will experience the Google effect on multiple occasions.
Content appearing online can create an inaccurate or out-of-date impression of who they are as a person now, even if it was originally innocent and harmless; with time, it is no longer the case.
Examples include someone who now wears a hijab seeking to remove images of themselves before they committed to doing so; a person who has transitioned and no longer wants to be associated with their “dead name”; and a newly married person seeking to remove photos of themselves with their former spouse.
RTBF allows individuals to request the removal of personal data from search engine results when it is outdated, inaccurate, excessive, or unlawfully published.
This includes newspaper articles, mugshots, outdated blogs, legal documents and other personal data – provided that removal does not infringe overriding public interest.
But this right is not automatic. It is discretionary and requires legal arguments to show that a person’s privacy outweighs the public interest.
Most people Google your name before they meet you. If page one of your search results shows spent convictions, false allegations or embarrassing content from years ago, your future can be derailed before it even starts.
Delisting helps restore fairness and opportunity in a digital age where search engines act as gatekeepers to employment, housing, finance, and personal dignity.
As misinformation rises and AI scrapes historical data, the importance of digital hygiene will only increase.
The right to be forgotten is not censorship. Rather, it is balance. It ensures that people are not defined forever by their worst moment, but by who they are today.
Graffiti gets scrubbed off. Why should digital graffiti stay forever?