Actualidad European Union

Google and the personal data processing

Ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), 13th May 2014

In relation to the protection of individuals in the processing of their personal data and the free movement of such data. With respect to a dispute between Google Spain, S.L. and Google Inc., on the one side, and the Spanish Data Protection Agency and Mr Costeja González, on the other, the Court has resolved that necessary measures should be taken to remove personal data from their index and thus prevent future access to such personal data.

Thus, when as a result of a search conducted using the name of an individual, links to websites containing information on that person are offered, he or she may contact the search engine manager directly or, if the latter rejects the request, contact the relevant authorities so that those links are deleted from the list of results, under certain conditions.