Google Deletion Complaints to Be Policed by EU Privacy Panel

The panel will look at how regulators should react to complaints from citizens about Google’s management of requests to delete online details, according to a member of the so-called Article 29 group of privacy watchdogs, which approved the step at a meeting in Brussels today.

The EU’s top court ruled last month that search engines must delete some personal information on request where Europeans’ fundamental rights are harmed and there’s no public interest in publishing it. Google said it got 41,000 requests to remove data in the first four days after it created an online form for people to ask for their data to be removed.

The right-to-be-forgotten ruling was a surprise for Google and other companies already facing greater scrutiny over privacy practices in the 28-nation EU. The bloc is seeking to increase the powers of data-protection watchdogs to impose fines for violations. Revelations of widespread U.S. spying on EU citizens, including top politicians such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have added to the clamor for privacy safeguards.

Google is separately seeking to settle a European Union antitrust probe over allegations that it discriminates against rivals in search results. Companies that have filed complaints against the search provider met with regulators to discuss the proposed settlement over the past two weeks.

By Aoife White
full article at Bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-04/google-deletion-complaints-to-be-policed-by-eu-privacy-taskforce.html