12/10/2019 CURIA - Documents – whether the provisions of Article 8(1) and (5) of Directive 95/46 must be interpreted as meaning that the operator of a search engine is required by those provisions, subject to the exceptions provided for by the directive, to accede to requests for de-referencing in relation to links to web pages containing personal data falling within the special categories referred to by those provisions; – whether Article 8(2)(a) and (e) of Directive 95/46 must be interpreted as meaning that, pursuant to that article, such an operator may refuse to accede to a request for de-referencing if he establishes that the links at issue lead to content comprising personal data falling within the special categories referred to in Article 8(1) but whose processing is covered by one of the exceptions laid down in Article 8(2)(a) and (e) of the directive; and – whether the provisions of Directive 95/46 must be interpreted as meaning that the operator of a search engine may also refuse to accede to a request for de-referencing on the ground that the links whose de-referencing is requested lead to web pages on which the personal data falling within the special categories referred to in Article 8(1) or (5) of the directive are published solely for journalistic purposes or those of artistic or literary expression and the publication is therefore covered by the exception in Article 9 of the directive. 50 It should be noted, as a preliminary point, that in the context of Directive 95/46 requests for dereferencing such as those at issue in the main proceedings have their basis in particular in Article 12(b) of the directive, under which the Member States are to guarantee data subjects the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of data whose processing does not comply with the directive. 51 Moreover, in accordance with Article 14(a) of Directive 95/46, the Member States are to grant the data subject the right, at least in the cases referred to in Article 7(e) and (f) of the directive, to object at any time on compelling legitimate grounds relating to his or her particular situation to the processing of data relating to him or her, save where otherwise provided by national legislation. 52 In this respect, it must be recalled that the Court has held that Article 12(b) and Article 14(a) of Directive 95/46 must be interpreted as meaning that, in order to comply with the rights laid down in those provisions and in so far as the conditions laid down by those provisions are in fact satisfied, the operator of a search engine is obliged to remove from the list of results displayed following a search made on the basis of a person’s name links to web pages, published by third parties and containing information relating to that person, also in a case where that name or information is not erased beforehand or simultaneously from those web pages, and even, as the case may be, when its publication in itself on those pages is lawful (judgment of 13 May 2014, Google Spain and Google, C-131/12, EU:C:2004:317, paragraph 88). 53 The Court has also held that, when appraising the conditions for the application of those provisions, it should inter alia be examined whether the data subject has a right that the information in question relating to him or her personally should, at the present point in time, no longer be linked to his or her name by a list of results displayed following a search made on the basis of his or her name, without it being necessary in order to find such a right that the inclusion of the information in question in that list causes prejudice to the data subject. As the data subject may, in the light of his or her fundamental rights under Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter, request that the information in question no longer be made available to the general public on account of its inclusion in such a list of results, those rights override, as a rule, not only the economic interest of the operator of the search engine but also the interest of the general public in having access to that information upon a search relating to the data subject’s name. However, that would not be the case if it appeared, for particular reasons, such as the role played by the data subject in public life, that the interference with his or her fundamental rights is justified by the preponderant interest of the general public in having, on account of its inclusion in the list of results, access to the information in question (judgment of 13 May 2014, Google Spain and Google, C-131/12, EU:C:2004:317, paragraph 99). 54 With respect to Regulation 2016/679, the EU legislature laid down, in Article 17 of the regulation, a provision specifically governing the ‘right to erasure’, also called the ‘right to be forgotten’ in the heading of that article. curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document_print.jsf?docid=218106&text=&dir=&doclang=EN&part=1&occ=first&mode=DOC&pageIndex=0&cid=2571804 13/19