EU Art. 29 Releases Guidelines On The Right To Be Forgotten

In November, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (Working Party) released guidelines as to how the Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) assembled in the Working Party intend to implement the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the case of Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González" (C-131/12) (Google Spain). The guidelines also contain a "list of common criteria" which the DPAs will apply to handle complaints.

The CJEU judgment set a milestone for EU data protection by granting individuals the right to request search engines to delist search results relating to them.

Part 1 of the guidelines attempts to interpret and answer the many questions left open by the judgment, and makes clear that the ruling applies to "generalist search engines", not websites. Most importantly, the right to be forgotten is global, and that by de-listing only EU domains does not guarantee