MR JUSTICE WARBY
Approved Judgment
33.
NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC
It is worthy of note that the Court drew distinctions between the processing of
information for journalistic purposes on the one hand, and its processing by ISEs on
the other, suggesting that the rights of data subjects will vary accordingly. The
following features of the Court’s reasoning are important:
(1)
The impact of processing by an ISE will tend to have a more significant
impact on the privacy and data protection rights of individuals than other
forms of processing. Such processing
“… is liable to affect significantly the fundamental rights to
privacy and to the protection of personal data when the
search by means of that engine is carried out on the basis of
an individual's name, since that processing enables any
Internet user to obtain through the list of results a structured
overview of the information relating to that individual that
can be found on the Internet—information which potentially
concerns a vast number of aspects of his private life and
which, without the search engine, could not have been
interconnected or could have been only with great
difficulty—and thereby to establish a more or less detailed
profile of him. Furthermore, the effect of the interference
with those rights of the data subject is heightened on account
of the important role played by the Internet and search
engines in modern society, which render the information
contained in such a list of results ubiquitous: see to this
effect eDate Advertising GmbH v X (Joined Cases C-509/09
and C-161/10) [2012] QB 654; [2011] ECR I-10269, para
45” ([80]).”
(2)
ISEs did not appear to the Court to be processing information “solely for
journalistic purposes”, so as to benefit from the privileges enjoyed by the
latter:
“… the processing by the publisher of a web page consisting
in the publication of information relating to an individual
may, in some circumstances, be carried out ‘solely for
journalistic purposes’ and thus benefit, by virtue of Article 9
of Directive 95/46, from derogations from the requirements
laid down by the directive, whereas that does not appear to
be so in the case of the processing carried out by the
operator of a search engine. It cannot therefore be ruled out
that in certain circumstances the data subject is capable of
exercising the rights referred to in Article 12(b) and
subparagraph (a) of the first paragraph of Article 14 of
Directive 95/46 against that operator but not against the
publisher of the web page”. ([85] emphasis added).
(3)
A delisting request relating may therefore be made, and upheld, in respect of
“links to web pages published lawfully by third parties and containing true
information in relation to him personally …” if the inclusion of those links in
the list of search results returned by the ISE nonetheless