// Netherlands · Right to be forgotten

Man loses right-to-be-forgotten bid over voluntarily published business URLs

Rechtbank Overijssel · 24 January 2017

ECLI:NL:RBOVE:2017:278

The case

A man convicted of indecent acts with a minor requested Google to remove four URLs from search results. The court partially granted the request: one URL had to be removed as it contained criminal personal data, but three other URLs could remain because the applicant had voluntarily published this business information.

What the court considered

01URL 1 contained criminal personal data subject to the processing prohibition under Article 16 Wbp without exception
02URLs 2, 3 and 4 contained special personal data (race/image), but applicant had deliberately made these public for business promotion
03For URLs 2-4, Google's invocation of Article 23(1)(b) Wbp succeeded (explicit intention to publish by data subject)
04The balancing of interests for URLs 2-4 favored Google given their commercial nature and promotional purposes

What this means in practice

Organizations managing search results must exercise particular caution with criminal data, but may rely on deliberate disclosure by individuals for business purposes. Individuals cannot always have all traces of their business history removed. This ruling demonstrates the practical application of the Costeja decision in the Netherlands and clarifies when criminal personal data should and should not be removed from search results.

Legal basis

Artikel 16 Wbp
Artikel 22 Wbp
Artikel 23 lid 1 sub b Wbp
Artikel 8 Privacyrichtlijn 95/46/EG
Costeja-arrest (C-131/12)

Right to be forgotten

Related rulings

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