Nobody would contest the fact that the Internet has revolutionized our lives. Terms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc have become common parlance. Internet is the common thread that binds together people across the world, people who are separated by millions of kilometres or geographical boundaries or religious faiths, people who would probably never meet each other. It has made the world a smaller place.
The Internet, especially its widely used avatars like Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype, Gmail, Picasa and the like are all less than two decades old. Both the service providers and their consumers have no set of rules to follow. Both are learning as the new mediums of communication evolve. Both are learning by experience and from their mistakes. However, no system is fool-proof and the cracks are beginning to show.
Like everything, the Internet too has brought with it its share of challenges. The biggest among them is the threat to people’s privacy. The European Union is leading the debate about the ‘Right to be forgotten’. Search engines like Google and social networking sites like Facebook are at the receiving end.
So, what is this ‘Right to be forgotten’ all about? Do individuals actually have a right to be forgotten? The whole debate has arisen from the fact that once some information, whether correct or not, goes on the Internet under a person’s name it remains there for life for anybody and everybody to see. Also, the data entered by users on various social networking sites, email applications, online surveys etc becomes public property by default. It may not be visible to the general public in its original form but finds its way to the public domain through research reports based on analysis of the data fed by innocuous and unsuspecting users. This is precisely what the ‘Right to be forgotten’ debate is all about.
At the heart of the debate lies the right to privacy of every individual. Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of being Googleable (meaning taken for granted!). Also, people change over a period of time. One may be okay with one’s details being available online at one point but may not be comfortable at another stage. Doesn’t an individual have the right to decide what the world can see or know about him? These are certain rights taken for granted in the ordinary brick and mortar world, then why change the standards for the e-world?
This debate becomes even more complex when public figures come in. The common man has the right to know what goes on in the lives of public figures like movie stars, politicians etc. However, even this right is not legally admissible but one that owes its validity to widespread agreement. Time and again, even public figures have demanded for their right to privacy and rightly so. It all boils down to one’s personal choice.
The legal system of any democratically run country says that one is innocent till proven guilty. Logically, this should extend to the e-world as well. It is very common to find that malicious content about many people is floating freely on the Internet and once there, it is there for life. How does one know whether the content is authentic or not? It could be the work of some enemy or competitor. Each individual should have a right to prove his innocence. Till then, the malicious content should not be freely available. It is said that punishing one innocent is worse than letting ten guilty go scot-free.
–Agencies