Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Legal Subjectivity and the ‘Right to be Forgotten’: A Rancièrean Analysis of Google

  • Published:
Law and Critique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article discusses the right to be forgotten. The landmark Google ruling of the European Court of Justice gave this ambiguous right new weight and raised several urgent questions. This article considers what kind of person is presupposed and constructed when somebody invokes their right to be forgotten. The aim is to engage in an experimental reading of the ruling in the framework of contemporary political theory, namely, the philosophy of Jacques Rancière. The analysis shows that even though the right to be forgotten is a new legal and rhetorical instrument, there are good grounds for being critical of its underlying logic and sceptical of the novelty thereof. The judgment can be understood as a reiteration and consolidation of the same impotent human rights thinking that law often seems forced to contend itself with, no matter how radical our intentions may be.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Case C-131/12, Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González (Google).

  2. For a recent example of a similar approach see Eleveld (2015).

  3. This view is held by different traditions of critical legal scholarship but perhaps most clearly visible in the work of what Costas Douzinas calls ‘the BritCrits’. See Douzinas (2014, pp. 193–195).

  4. See on the development of data protection law in the EU e.g. Hijmans and Scirocco (2012, pp. 806–836). The right to be forgotten has been discussed already before Google because of the Commission’s proposed legislative reform. See ‘Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data’ (General Data Protection Regulation), COM (2012)11 final, especially chapter III, art 17. See also Fazlioglu (2013, pp. 149–157).

  5. This can be seen in other recent decisions such as Joined Cases C-293/12 and C-594/12 Digital Rights Ireland Digital Rights Ireland and Seitlinger and Other and Case C-362/14 Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection. Commissioner.

  6. Several scholars have warned that EU data protection legislation does not take rights seriously enough. See e.g. Ferretti (2014, pp. 868–868).

  7. When analysing the right to be forgotten Koops describes three main conceptions: ‘we can discern in policy and academic literature three perspectives on the right to be forgotten: a dominant perspective stressing that personal data should be deleted in due time, and two minority “clean-slate” visions: a social perspective that outdated negative information should not be used against people, and an individual self-development perspective that people should feel unrestrained in expressing themselves in the here and now, without fear of future consequences’. Koops (2012, p. 6).

  8. Similar research has been done from a different theoretical framework by Kirsty Hughes. See her interesting article, Hughes (2012, pp. 806–836).

  9. Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data, OJ L 281, 23.11.1995.

  10. See the famous Schrems for a case that takes territoriality of data protection to a whole new level of importance. Case C-362/14 Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner.

  11. Opinion of Mr Advocate General Jääskinen delivered on 25 June 2013. Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González. Reference for a preliminary ruling: Audiencia Nacional—Spain (AG).

  12. On the inability of the ECJ to clarify the meaning of EU citizenship, see e.g. Kochenov (2013, pp. 512–516).

  13. Nevertheless, see the preface to Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, where he talks about law, including legislation and court rulings, arguing that it should be a topic for political philosophy. Rancière (1999, vii–xiii).

  14. One interesting attempt to mobilise Rancièrean concepts in critical legal thinking is provided by Wall (2012, pp. 226–227).

  15. ‘Late-modern’ is chosen here simply for the reason that it tends to provoke less antipathy than, say, ‘post-modern’. The theories referred to here are e.g. Foucauldian ones, or political theories that take their inspiration from Marx.

  16. Rancière was a student of Althusser’s in the 1960s.

  17. Rancière himself does not regard law as compatible with politics. According to him, law is primarily order and it hinders disagreement. Equality is disagreement in the sense that it always questions and disrupts and can therefore never be implemented. Legal definitions of equality are never sufficient but always lacking, because as definitions they uphold the police. See e.g. Rancière (2010, pp. 36, 54).

  18. On different types of (online) obscurity, see Hartzog and Stutzman (2013, pp. 1–50).

References

  • Aradau, Claudia, Jef Huysmans, and Vicki Squire. 2010. Acts of European citizenship: A political sociology of mobility. Journal of Common Market Studies 48: 945–965.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bernal, Paul A. 2011. A right to delete? European Journal of Law and Technology 2. http://ejlt.org/article/view/75/144. Accessed 24 September 2014.

  • Cameron, Neil. 2014. The ‘right to be forgotten’ case: Google right this time, ECJ hopelessly wrong. Legal Week, 22 May. http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/blog-post/2346341/the-right-to-be-forgotten-case-google-right-this-time-ecj-hopelessly-wrong. Accessed 24 September 2014.

  • Douzinas, Costas. 2014. A short history of the British critical legal conference or, the responsibility of the critic. Law and Critique 25: 187–198.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eleveld, Anja. 2015. Claiming care rights as a performative act. Law and Critique 26: 83–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fazlioglu, Muge. 2013. Forget me not: The clash of the right to be forgotten and freedom of expression on the Internet. International Data Privacy Law 3: 149–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferretti, Federico. 2014. Data protection and the legitimate interest of data controllers: Much ado about nothing or the winter of rights? Common Market Law Review 51: 843–868.

    Google Scholar 

  • Franko Aas, Katja. 2011. ‘Crimmigrant’ bodies and bona fide travelers: Surveillance, citizenship and global governance. Theoretical Criminology 15: 331–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartzog, Woodrow, and Frederic Stutzman. 2013. The case for online obscurity. California Law Review 101: 1–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hijmans, Hielke, and Alfonso Scirocco. 2012. Shortcomings in EU data protection in the third and the second pillars: Can the Lisbon Treaty be expected to help? Common Market Law Review 36: 806–836.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, Kirsty. 2012. A behavioural understanding of privacy and its implications for privacy law. The Modern Law Review 75: 806–836.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelsey, Elizabeth. 2014. Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v AEPD and Mario Costeja Gonzalez: Protection of personal data, freedom of information and the ‘right to be forgotten’. European Human Rights Review 4: 395–400.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kochenov, Dimitry. 2013. The right to have what rights? EU citizenship in need of clarification. European Law Journal 19: 502–516.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Koops, Bert-Jaap. 2012. Forgetting footprints, shunning shadows. A critical analysis of the ‘right to be forgotten’ in big data practice. Tilburg Law School Legal Studies Research Paper Series 8: 1–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindroos-Hovinheimo, Susanna. 2015. Excavating foundations of legal personhood: Fichte on autonomy and self-consciousness. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 28: 687–702.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • May, Todd. 2008. The political thought of Jacques Rancière: Creating equality. Pennsylvania: Penn State Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • May, Todd. 2010. Wrong, disagreement, subjectification. In Jacques Rancière: Key concepts, ed. J.P. Deranty, 69–79. Oxon, New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Purtova, Nadezhda. 2014. Default entitlements in personal data in the proposed regulation: Informational self-determination off the table… and back on again. Computer Law and Security Review 30: 6–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 1992. Politics, identification, and subjectivization. October 61: 58–64.

  • Rancière, Jacques. 1999. Disagreement: Politics and philosophy. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 2003. The philosopher and his poor. Durham, London: Dukes University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 2009. Hatred of democracy. London, New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 2010. Dissensus: On politics and aesthetics. London, New York: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques. 2012. Work, identity, subject. In Jacques Rancière and the contemporary scene: The philosophy of radical equality, ed. J.P. Deranty, and A. Ross, 205–216. London, New York: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rancière, Jacques, and Davide Panagia. 2000. Dissenting words: A conversation with Jacques Rancière. Diacritics 30: 113–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • van der Sloot, Bart. 2014. Privacy as human flourishing: Could a shift towards virtue ethics strengthen privacy protection in the age of big data? Journal of Intellectual Property, Information Technology and E-Commerce Law 5: 3.

    Google Scholar 

  • Somek, Alexander. 2014. Europe: Political, not cosmopolitan. European Law Journal 20: 142–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Toobin, Jeffery. 2014. The solace of oblivion. The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/29/solace-oblivion. Accessed: 24 September 2014.

  • Travis, Alan and Charles Arthur. 2014. EU court backs ‘right to be forgotten’: Google must amend results on request. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/13/right-to-be-forgotten-eu-court-google-search-results. Accessed 24 September 2014.

  • Wall, Illan Rua. 2012. Tunisia and the critical legal theory of dissensus. Law and Critique 23: 219–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Žižek, Slavoj. 2008. The ticklish subject: The absent centre of political ontology. London, New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

Legal sources

  • Case C-131/12, Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González (Google).

  • Joined Cases C-293/12 and C-594/12 Digital Rights Ireland Digital Rights Ireland and Seitlinger and Other.

  • Case C-362/14 Maximillian Schrems v Data Protection Commissioner.

  • Opinion of Mr Advocate General Jääskinen delivered on 25 June 2013. Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González. Reference for a preliminary ruling: Audiencia Nacional—Spain (AG).

  • Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data, OJ L 281, 23.11.1995.

  • Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation), COM(2012)11 final.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Susanna Lindroos-Hovinheimo

  2. Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Susanna Lindroos-Hovinheimo

Authors
  1. Susanna Lindroos-Hovinheimo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Susanna Lindroos-Hovinheimo.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lindroos-Hovinheimo, S. Legal Subjectivity and the ‘Right to be Forgotten’: A Rancièrean Analysis of Google . Law Critique 27, 289–301 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-016-9185-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-016-9185-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation