By Kwon Ji-youn
The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) is working on guidelines to protect Internet users’ “right to be forgotten.”
The KCC said Sunday that it plans to draw up guidelines that will allow Internet users to request that information be deleted so that it no longer can be seen online. Users will be able to ask website managers to remove such data, provided it was put there legally.
The guidelines will not apply to illegal posts, including pornography, classified information or information that invades another person’s privacy or defames someone.
The guidelines also will not apply to articles published in the media to avoid violating freedom of the press laws, nor will the guidelines apply to research papers or information that promotes the public interest.
An exception will also be made for areas that play a role in public life, where there is interest in the public having access to information, according to the KCC.
The “right to be forgotten” concept was coined and put into practice in the mid-2000s in the European Union (EU). Legal frameworks indicate that it “reflects the claim of an individual to have certain data deleted so that third persons can no longer trace them.”
In 2014, the European Court of Justice ruled against Google in a case brought by a Spanish man, Mario Costeja Gonzalez. The court ruled that an Internet search engine operator was responsible for the processing of personal information that appears on web pages published by third parties.
However, there are concerns about the practicality of establishing a “right to be forgotten” and about its impact on the right to freedom of expression and to privacy.
The KCC still has several issues to address, including whether to allow users to delete others’ posts about them; whether to allow family members to request removal on a user’s behalf; and whether to launch a separate organization to determine which information can and cannot be deleted.