Finnish court issues precedent “right to be forgotten” decision for Google to remove data

The highest courts in Finland have issued a decision in a case that stands to create an important precedent. A man who had been convicted of murder has a right to privacy, and removing his information from the search engine’s data is not seen to infringe on the public’s right to information on important persons. This decision to have URL links containing personal information removed from the internet is the first of its kind in Finland. Finland’s Data Protection Ombudsman put forward the data removal request because Google refused to remove the man’s information at the first request. The man in question was sentenced to ten years and six months in prison for a “diminished responsibility murder” whereby defendants are not held to be fully criminally liable for their crime because their mental functions are diminished or impaired. The murder took place in 2012, and the man’s imprisonment ended in July 2017.  https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/finnish_court_issues_precedent_right_to_be_forgotten_decision_for_google_to_remove_data/10358108?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWmpRMU1ESXpObVl4TmpBdyIsInQiOiJNcEVoSjhFUUpCRzJQanNzdGlleTVpWnFlZmhmNTRSZXEwMzMzS3hMVmxKMmExQjJRelN4ZHUwY1hKdkIxNHlFSHdXS0lYNGZibk03bENDallJd0ZaT0NGRndlenQxTlY4Ris4VG9oVmh5bTQ4bE9CY3l0ZTl5WGFyZUZnTW5vUiJ9