HUGHES: NO 'RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN'
People do not have an "unfettered" right to have links to internet articles containing information about them removed under a so-called "right to be forgotten", a minister is expected to say today.
Liberal Democrat justice minister Simon Hughes will tell members of the House of Lords Home Affairs Committee that there is no such thing as a right to be forgotten, the Daily Telegraph reported.
A landmark European court decision in May said Google must listen and sometimes comply when individuals ask the search engine to remove links to newspaper articles or websites containing personal information.
The ''right to be forgotten'' is based on the premise that outdated information about people should be removed from the internet after a certain time.
Earlier this month the BBC's economics editor Robert Peston asked why he was being ''cast into oblivion'' by Google after the BBC received an alert saying a 2007 blog about a chief executive leaving investment bank Merrill Lynch would no longer appear in Google searches in Europe.
Mr Hughes is today expected to say that referring to a "right to be forgotten" is not "accurate or helpful", the Telegraph reported.
It is understood he will also say that the Government is keen to balance the right of privacy with the right to freedom of speech.
Google spokesman Al Verney said after the court ruling in May that it was ''disappointing...for search engines and online publishers in general''.
