'Right to be forgotten' claimant wants to rewrite history, says Google

A businessman who has launched a legal bid to erase online articles about his criminal conviction in the first “right to be forgotten” case in the English courts should not be allowed to rewrite history, lawyers for Google have said.  The claimant, referred to only as NT1 for legal reasons, was convicted of conspiracy to account falsely in the late 1990s and wants the search engine to remove results that mention his case, including web pages published by a national newspaper.

In 2014 the European Union’s court of justice ruled that “irrelevant” and outdated data should be erased on request. Since then, Google has received requests to remove at least 2.4 million links from search results. Search engines can reject applications if they believe the public interest in accessing the information outweighs a right to privacy. But Antony White QC, representing Google, said the “right to be forgotten” ruling was “not a right to rewrite history or ... tailor your past if that’s what this claimant would like to use it for”.