It is certain that we have all made mistakes in the past, or had political opinions – wrong or correct – but we changed these opinions at some point in our lives, we wrote articles or had videos on YouTube or posts on Facebook or tweets on the Twitter platform, newspapers and websites dealt with These opinions and ideas have become accessible to everyone. The question here is: Do we have the right to delete these information, articles and opinions as long as they do not represent us now? As long as it is part of the past, do we have the right to demand that Google delete our news from the pages of the search engine, or delete articles we wrote in the past – for example – on the Arab Post website?
The answer to this question requires that I tell you two different cases of someone who may ask for this right, the right to erasure, a politician who was accused of the crime of harassment, and the crime was proven against him some time ago, newspapers and websites dealt with this news about him to the extent that if you search for his name – just the name – In the Google search engine, you will only find results that talk about the story of his harassment. After a few years, this politician wants to run for parliament and is looking for ways to improve his image for voters. The question here is: Does he have the right to ask Google to delete the results that deal with his news in a negative way? ? Does he have the right to erase? In forgetting his history? Or should voters know who they are going to vote for? Is this a dilemma? Let me tell you the second story.
A businessman with competitors who were able to pay websites and newspapers to defame him. Whenever he searches for his name, he finds only false news that offends him, which is completely false news. Does he not have the right to demand that websites and search engines delete these results, news, and offensive and targeted topics? There are many forms and forms and different cases in which you may stand with a person’s right to erasure and you may settle in your certainty that a person should not be empowered with this right, but what about the law, does Egyptian law, for example, support the idea of the right to be forgotten or the right to erasure?
Here we will address the Egyptian Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020 regarding the definition of personal data and the differentiation between it and sensitive personal data – this is the data that a person wants to erase or forget – as well as refers to the party who owns this data in the name of the processor, for example if you create an account on Tender site for example, I linked this account to my phone number, email, and my profile picture – all of these are personal data – the question here: If I delete my account on Tender does it have the right to keep this data or use it in any way? The law states that this is not permissible.
Sensitive personal data is related to a person’s health, psychological, security, religious beliefs or political opinions. All of this data you have the right – according to Egyptian law – to demand – the processor – the person who owns this data about you to delete it and abide by this, it is not permissible to collect Personal data, processing, disclosure or disclosure by any means except with the express consent of the person concerned with the data or in the cases authorized by law, in accordance with Article 2 of the law. And if he requests the amendment, correction or deletion of this data, it is obligated to do so in accordance with the law.
International laws and treaties also support and affirm this right, for example, you will find the European Regulation for the Protection of Personal Data GDPR supports the right to be forgotten in a more strict and powerful way, but it is not only the legal aspect that has the final say in implementing this right, the technical aspect also plays an important role because we are simply talking about Sites, search engines, and algorithms, because the one who will implement this right and make it on the ground is software, we are talking about billions of users and each one of them on Google has his own data, it is more complicated than you can imagine.
In fact, implementing the right to be forgotten on the ground requires many resources and great capabilities, not all sites and companies are able to achieve it – Google, Facebook, Twitter and famous sites can do this, do not worry – there is also a dilemma in the idea of screenshots, for example, if I publish my personal data on A site, for example, and someone took this data as a picture on his device, and then I demanded this site to delete my data and actually delete it. This does not prevent the person who took a picture of my data to re-publish it again.
My only advice is not to rush to share your personal data on the Internet, because as long as you use the Internet and own your IP address, this completely contradicts the idea of privacy, in the end let’s try something practical for ourselves, and see if Google will respond with the idea of the right to be forgotten and erased Or not, Google provides a link for everyone if they want to delete any of its results if it deals with false news about them, let’s try this feature, search for your name in Google, if you find a result you want to delete, enter this page – delete Google results – and start asking for deletion, Don’t forget to share your experience with us.
