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by freshflowers 4217 days ago
The essence of privacy in the European context is that data about you belongs to you, unless it's in the greater public interest.

Who do you think it belongs to?

2 comments

The data about you should belong to the person or thing collecting the data unless otherwise specified in an agreement of some sort (say, for instance, self-nominated data shall be owned by the user that input the data)

For example: you walk down the street and I see you (because you were there and you exist) and my memory of you being there might be recounted in a blog at some point. That blog might get indexed on Google.

Who owns that data about you? I would argue the person that made the observation owns it - the fact that you acted to walk down a street does not mean you get to control my recollection of that event, or the fact that it happened.

Your personal data belongs to you, yes. Your past actions do not. If you killed an old lady while DUI, sorry, that information does not belong to you, and you have no right to have it forgotten. Ahem... You should have no right. EU seems to think it is acceptable to rewrite history. As an European, I'm positively ashamed of the image we are sending the world on this matter.

Let the slippery slope begin. Islamic States will mandate that all information about women behaving against the Islamic customs be censored, worldwide. It's idiotic, but not more idiotic than the right to be forgotten.