The Conseil d’Etat announced today that it referred several questions to the Court of Justice of the EU concerning the interpretation of the right to be forgotten, pursuant to Directive 95/46 and following the CJEU’s landmark decision in the Google v Spain case.
The questions were raised within proceedings involving the application of four individuals to the Conseil d’Etat to have decisions issued by the CNIL (French DPA) quashed. These decisions rejected their requests for injunctions against Google to have certain Google Search results delisted.
According to the press release of the Conseil d’Etat, “these requests were aimed at removing links relating to various pieces of information :a video that explicitly revealed the nature of the relationship that an applicant was deemed to have entertained with a person holding a public office; a press article relating to the suicide committed by a member of the Church of Scientology, mentioning that one of the applicants was the public relations manager of that Church; various articles relating to criminal proceedings concerning an applicant; and articles relating the conviction of another applicant for having sexually aggressed minors.
The Conseil d’Etat further explained that in order to rule on these claims, it has deemed necessary to answer a number of questions “raising serious issues with regard to the interpretation of European law in the light of the European Court of Justice’s judgment in its Google Spain case.
Such issues are in relation with the obligations applying to the operator of a search engine with regard to web pages that contain sensitive data, when collecting and processing such information is illegal or very narrowly framed by legislation, on the grounds of its content relating to sexual orientations, political, religious or philosophical opinions, criminal offences, convictions or safety measures. On that point, the cases brought before the Conseil d’Etat raise questions in close connection with the obligations that lie on the operator of a search engine, when such information is embedded in a press article or when the content that relates to it is false or incomplete”.
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