Can I have my name removed from Google search results?

Not everyone is happy with what can be found about him/her through Google. The question then often asked is whether it is possible to be removed from Google search results. For this, the right to be forgotten is invoked.

The Finnish Supreme Administrative Court had to consider the request of a man who had committed murder and whose prison sentence had ended in 2017. The man was only sentenced to a short prison term as he had a mental impairment. Through Google, anyone who entered his name could find information about this murder and the man's mental disability. He considered this a violation of his privacy and demanded that Google remove this information from the search engine results, which Google refused on the grounds of the right to freedom of speech.

Finland's Supreme Administrative Court ruled in a ruling of August 17, 2018 that the data about the man's mental impairment was indeed sensitive personal data that belonged to his private sphere. Even though the crime committed by the man was very serious, according to the Court, this did not outweigh the man's right to privacy. Google should therefore remove from its search results the references to websites about this information of the man.

This case demonstrates that in certain circumstances it is possible to successfully demand that Google not include websites containing personal data in Google's search results. In fact, Google provides a online removal form , although Google does not always follow up on this.

Incidentally, the right to data erasure (right to oblivion) was also explicitly included in Article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (better known as GDPR).

The Belgian Court of Cassation also fitted in a ruling of April 29, 2016 grant the right to be forgotten in a case between a man who had caused a serious traffic accident years ago and the newspaper Le Soir. After all, the publisher had digitized old Le Soir newspapers so that information about the man could be found via Google. The Supreme Court ruled that the man was justified in demanding that Le Soir make his name anonymous since the traffic accident was in the distant past.