12/10/2019 CURIA - Documents – Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), by I. Falque-Pierrotin, J. Lessi and G. Le Grand, acting as Agents, – Google LLC, by P. Spinosi, Y. Pelosi and W. Maxwell, avocats, – the French Government, by D. Colas, R. Coesme, E. de Moustier and S. Ghiandoni, acting as Agents, – Ireland, by M. Browne, G. Hodge, J. Quaney and A. Joyce, acting as Agents, and M. Gray, Barrister-at-Law, – the Greek Government, by E.-M. Mamouna, G. Papadaki, E. Zisi and S. Papaioannou, acting as Agents, – the Italian Government, by G. Palmieri, acting as Agent, and F. De Luca and P. Gentili, avvocati dello Stato, – the Austrian Government, by G. Eberhard and G. Kunnert, acting as Agents, – the Polish Government, by B. Majczyna, M. Pawlicka and J. Sawicka, acting as Agents, – the United Kingdom Government, by S. Brandon, acting as Agent, and C. Knight, Barrister, – the European Commission, by A. Buchet, H. Kranenborg and D. Nardi, acting as Agents, after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 10 January 2019, gives the following Judgment 1 This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (OJ 1995 L 281, p. 31). 2 The request has been made in proceedings between GC, AF, BH and ED and the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (French Data Protection Authority, France) (‘the CNIL’) concerning four decisions of the CNIL refusing to serve formal notice on Google Inc., now Google LLC, to de-reference various links appearing in the lists of results displayed following searches of their names and leading to web pages published by third parties. Legal context EU law Directive 95/46 3 The object of Directive 95/46, in accordance with Article 1(1), is to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, and in particular their right to privacy with respect to the processing of personal data, and to eliminate obstacles to the free flow of personal data. 4 Recitals 33 and 34 of Directive 95/46 state: ‘(33) Whereas data which are capable by their nature of infringing fundamental freedoms or privacy should not be processed unless the data subject gives his explicit consent; whereas, however, derogations from this prohibition must be explicitly provided for in respect of specific needs … curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document_print.jsf?docid=218106&text=&dir=&doclang=EN&part=1&occ=first&mode=DOC&pageIndex=0&cid=2571804 2/19