The Cascade Of Decaying Information

Putting the “Right to be Forgotten” in Perspective

• Oskar Josef Gstrein

This article starts with a summary of the discourse on the “right to be forgotten”. After elaborating on the attempts for transformation of the original concept into a legally binding obligation and the judgment of the European Court of Justice in case C-131/12 it is submitted that the public perception of the nature of such a right is misleading. While a right to be forgotten is necessary to avoid harm to human dignity in the digital age it has to be put in perspective and applied appropriately. Hence, it is suggested to integrate the right to be forgotten in a “cascade of decaying information”. Such a cascade would make it possible for less intrusive and more easily applicable measures to eliminate undesirable effects for personal development before having to remove information entirely from a information system. Furthermore, it is submitted that a right to be forgotten has to be understood as a methodological tool in order to become a valid legal concept. Therefore it has to be seen in the context of closed information networks which should be established for information processing operations of sensitive data.