CJEU is asked to rule on the ‘Right to be Forgotten’ again

The Italian Supreme Court recently asked the CJEU for a preliminary ruling on two questions regarding the ‘right to be forgotten’.

[Disclaimer: this information is loosely translated from official documents published by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The original request can be found here [it]. The CJEU’s documents folder (still empty at the time of writing) can be found here.]

Facts & Procedure (Case C-398/15 – Manni)

The original plaintiff (Salvatore Manni)’s business had gone bankrupt in 1992. This was added to a public Company Register, managed by the defendant (Camera di commercio di Lecce). Plaintiff argued he (his business of selling houses in particular) suffers damages and requested defendant to anonymise his name or restrict access to the register. Defendant stated that the ‘Companies Register’ is a public database with the primary function of informing (on request) about relevant information of companies. The case escalated all the way to the Italian Supreme Court (Corte Suprema di Cassazione), which referred to questions to the CJEU.

Questions referred

The Italian Court essentially wonders whether information legally consigned to (and made public by) the defendant, can be erased, anonymised or access-restricted after a certain time. The Court does point out the importance of the public Register (for legal certainty). Referring to the Google Spain Case (C-131/12), the Court asks not whether the information should be erased from the Register, but whether limits should be put as to the (further) use of this public information by third parties.

1. Does Article 6(1)(e) of the Data Protection Directive supersede the making public through the company register as commended by Directive 68/151/EEG and corresponding national legislation, to the extent that the latter requires that anyone should have have access to the personal data in the register without restrictions?
2. Does Article 3 of Directive 68/151/EEG allow, in contrast with the rule that the Company Register saves public information for an indeterminate time and can be consulted by anyone, the information to be made no longer ‘public’, though still available to a specific group, and this to be decided on a case-by-case basis by the Register’s manager?

Relevance

The underlying facts in this ‘Manni’ Case, are strikingly similar to the ones in the Google Spain Case. Instead of focusing on the third-party, however, the CJEU is now asked to evaluate the obligations of the original publisher. In Google Spain, it was already decided (by the national DPA) that the original publication could not be touched before even reaching the CJEU. In the Manni Case, the original source also has a legal obligation to publish. Yet, it is not asked to remove personal data from the source altogether. Only whether the source can be asked to make it less accessible. This raises very interesting questions – left unanswered in Google Spain – as to the obligations on the shoulders of the original publishers and different degrees of publicity.

To be continued…!