Così fan tutte : A better approach than the right to be forgotten

Abstract

In this article, we argue in favor of a macro-societal approach to protect people from the potential harms of personal information online. In the tension between information and privacy, "the right to be forgotten" is not an appropriate solution. Such a micro, individual-based answer puts the burden of protection on each person instead of on external entities that can abuse such knowledge. The personal responsibility to delete personal data is challenging because of the leakage of data that happens through the connections we have with others, many of whom do not share the same privacy preferences. We show that effective deletion is almost impossible (the eternity effect), and is unfair due to the resource burden it entails when users try to achieve it, while at the same time ensuring the potential benefits we can derive in the future from having personal information online. In addition, deletion requests can negatively affect other people who are in the same location and time frame and may not want to have their information deleted. Collectively, we argue also that society is worse off because these circumstances lead people to construct sanitized personas while perpetuating a culture of distrust. Given that the harm is real, we describe technology, societal norms, and the implementation of an antidiscrimination directive for the right to a personal life, and we provide evidence on how anti-discrimination efforts in the past have succeeded when legislation leads to the development of infrastructures that help to enforce them. The dissemination of personal information through public sites and social media is, as Mozart suggested in Cosi fan tutte, gradually educating humanity about human weaknesses.

Could You Ever Forget Me? Why People Want to be Forgotten Online

“…Furthermore, when online content contains sensitive personal details, it terrifies individuals as they are not able to handle the situation. The major motives are closely related to the interconnected nature of the Internet, as individuals can hardly imagine control and revise digital content on the Internet because of their inability, whereas the ripple effects of privacy infringements are devastating (Garcia-Murillo and MacInnes 2018 ). Other motives, such as control over further processing, system/process, social reputation, and sociality, are as important as the major ones because these, too, represent some aspects of individual privacy on the Internet.…”

“…Furthermore, the overwhelming creation of thoughtless content was also pointed out as a negative consequence of the right. Some argued that the right is too idealistic to be realized (Garcia-Murillo and MacInnes 2018 ). Following a series of discussions, EU’s right to be forgotten states several conditions of enforcements.…”

Should they? Mobile Biometrics and Technopolicy Meet Queer Community Considerations

“…5 The right to be forgotten can provide transgender individuals with the additional data privacy power to conceal their past, offering greater self-determination over their identity and helps to mitigate risks of being outed and targeted for their transgender history than other privacy laws [51]. Some authors like Garcia-Murillo and McInnes raise issues with the right to be forgotten over the difficulties involved with prior data leaks, issues with deleting data stored by third parties not subject to right to be forgotten laws, when a data controller has a valid exemption listed in Article 17 of the GDPR, and ethical issues over information that would be useful to others or our future selves, such as health or biographical information [44]. These authors instead suggest alternate solutions of changing social norms or advancing anti-discrimination legislation, but enacting those changes can be more difficult than furthering data privacy law with a right to be forgotten.…”

The Right to Be Forgotten in the European Perspective

“…The implementation of this right in practice is rather complicated and controversial. The list of conflicts in its application includes the complexity of technical solutions and the obstacles for the operation of modern interfaces that are well adapted to the user based on the collected data (Politou et al, 2018), the potential infringement of free speech in the form of subtle censorship (Ausloos, 2012), changes in content regulation that could create an online information ecosystem that violates ethical standards (Kritikos, 2018), the negative impact of data deletion requests on other people whose data is linked and maintaining a culture of mistrust (Garcia-Murillo & MacInnes, 2018). In addition, there are questions regarding an "appropriate transparency, as well as an accumulation of power in the wrong hands, and a lack of a strong voice for the affected public at large" (Holland, 2019, p. 40) in relation to data controllers, as well as questions about the role of arbiter of online content and the opportunity to rewrite history (Yang et al, 2017) applied to corporations.…”