UK Information Commissioner asks Google to remove nine links to current news stories

The UK Information Commissioner has asked Google to remove nine links to current news stories relating to older reports, which were themselves removed from search results under the 'right to be forgotten' ruling.

The search engine had earlier removed links relating to a 10-year old criminal offence by an individual after requests made under the right to be forgotten ruling.

Removal of those links from Google's search results for the claimant's name led to news posts detailing the removals, which Google's search engine then indexed.

Google turned down requests for removal of the links to these later news posts, which included details of the original criminal offence, as they formed part of search results for the claimant's name. Google argued that they formed an essential part of a recent news story and were in the public interest.

The search company now has 35 days from 18 August to remove the links from its search results for the claimant's name. Google had the right to appeal to the General Regulatory Chamber against the notice.

According to deputy commissioner David Smith, the European court ruling last year was clear that links prompted by searching on an individual's name were subject to data protection rules, which meant they should not include personal information that was no longer relevant.

Google has been ordered to remove nine links to news stories by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under the "right to be forgotten".

According to the ICO, ability to access the links by searching for the complainant by name constituted a breach of the Data Protection Act.

"Let's be clear. We understand that links being removed as a result of this court ruling is something that newspapers want to write about," said deputy commissioner David Smith, BBC reported.

"And we understand that people need to be able to find these stories through search engines like Google.

"But that does not need them to be revealed when searching on the original complainant's name."

Ian Walden, professor of information and communications law at Queen Mary, University of London said the situation was a "messy compromise".

"You can search under 'right to be forgotten', 'takedown', and you can look at the whole discussion about whether it's being taken down," he told the BBC, "but if you search the individual's name you should get a different set of search results."