Is the worry primarily around article-space, or around Wikipedia users?
There's already
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Courtesy_vanishing, though it
would have to be made somewhat more rigorous (and no longer a mere
courtesy) if it were an actual legal obligation.
As a non-lawyer, I would consider our uses in article-space to all fall
under the exceptions, though I wouldn't want to speculate on whether a
court would agree. At least in principle, Wikipedia articles only cover
material of historical, cultural, scientific, artistic, sociological,
etc. interest. If anything, we're more often criticized for upholding
that viewpoint too strongly; vociferous complaints about Wikipedia's
"deletionism" seem to pop up in nearly every external discussion of
Wikipedia. Though this may lower the bar for people wanting information
removed from Wikipedia, by providing an alternate route from the usual
libel-law approach that doesn't require them to prove libel, so might be
bad pragmatically.
-Mark
On 2/11/12 7:42 AM, Samuel Klein wrote:
Forwarding from internal.
The right to vanish... or a part of it... proposed as law.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Symonds<richard.symo...@wikimedia.org.uk>
Date: Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 11:46 AM
Subject: [Internal-l] Right to be Forgotten
To: interna...@lists.wikimedia.org
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16677370
A new law promising internet users the "right to be forgotten" will be
proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday.
It says people will be able to ask for data about them to be deleted
and firms will have to comply unless there are "legitimate" grounds to
retain it.
The move is part of a wide-ranging overhaul of the commission's 1995
Data Protection Directive.
Richard Symonds
Office& Development Manager
Wikimedia UK
----------------------------------------
As Bence noted:
You can find the December 2011 draft at
http://epic.org/privacy/intl/EU-Privacy-Regulation-29-11-2011.pdf
(Article 15 is the relevant part).
The stated exceptions do not include expense or technical difficulty, but
include
" except to the extent that the retention of the personal data is necessary:
(a) for exercising the right of freedom of expression in accordance with
Article 79;
or
(b) for historical, statistical and scientific research purposes in accordance
with
Article 83; or
(c) for compliance with a legal obligation to retain the data by Union or Member
State law to which the controller is subject; this law shall meet an
objective of
public interest, respect the essence of the right to the protection of
personal
data and be proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued; or
(d) in the cases referred to in paragraph 4."
I'll leave it to the lawyers to decide how this affects Wikimedia (which is
hosted
outside the EEA) and whether any of the exceptions can be applied to it.
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