India scrutinising issue of right to be forgotten online

Mr Ashutosh Kaushik, a 41-year-old actor, has sought his right to be forgotten (RTBF) in a recent petition at the High Court of Delhi.

"Why should I continue suffering for something that I have already been punished for?" he told The Straits Times last week.

He is seeking the removal of online content - which includes media reports, videos and photos - relating to two drink driving incidents he was involved dating back to 2009 and 2013. Mr Kaushik was fined and had his driving licence suspended both times, and spent a day in a court prison each time.

With this content still easily available online, Mr Kaushik claims it is having "a detrimental effect on his life and personal liberty".

"My present is ruined, my past has been already ruined, my future is also ruined," he said, detailing how he has lost out on potential film roles as well as marriage proposals because of these reports.

He added: "These incidents happened, I agree; keep them in the police records for a lifetime. But why infringe upon one's privacy?"

In his petition, he argues that the Internet, with its "unforgiving memory", does not allow a person to "overcome his past follies and turn (over) a new leaf".

"Even now when reporting on my petition, the media are using old visuals from my drunk episodes," added Mr Kaushik.

The actor's petition, which the court began hearing last month, has raised complex questions about the growing digital footprint in people's lives and potential whitewashing in the name of protecting individual rights.

RTBF refers to the ability to have some publicly available personal information about an individual erased from the Internet, including search engines and websites, or any other public platform. It seeks to protect an individual from being repeatedly stigmatised as a consequence of a specific action performed by him or her in the past. RTBF is recognised by law in the European Union under the General Data Protection Regulation.

India has no legislation that specifically provides for RTBF but courts have recognised this right in some way or another. The Delhi High Court, in an interim order in May, asked Google to remove references in its search results to a court judgment related to the acquittal of an American citizen of Indian descent in a drug-related case.

This individual, who petitioned the court, argued that public access to the order had made it hard for him to find a job. The court also ordered Indian Kanoon, a legal affairs website, to block access to the judgment.

But the growing number of cases invoking RTBF in India has raised concerns over whether such moves could alter the way history is recorded. Mr Nikhil Pahwa, the founder of MediaNama, a website that reports on technology policy issues in India, believes a line should be drawn with an exemption for media and other institutions documenting history.

"What we are doing as journalists, as researchers, or even libraries, is storing records of history to be referred to by others," the journalist said. "As someone once rightly said, more often than not, people who want to be forgotten deserve to be remembered, and I'm very conscious that this kind of a right could change the recording of history."

MediaNama has turned down two requests centred around the right to be forgotten. One sought modification of an article on the portal and the other wanted the deletion of a post. The site did not make any changes to the articles.

"I am fine with them being an unvisited page on MediaNama but I am uncomfortable expunging a record. When you ask for names to be removed from public records, whether it is a MediaNama article or a Wikipedia entry, you're trying to expunge a record from history," Mr Pahwa said, drawing a distinction between removal of articles from online search results and their deletion from databases.

"Removing it from online search is also not without its problems - if you can't find it, does it even exist?" he added.

Mr Kaushik's petition raises this concern as he is seeking removal of articles related to his misconduct not just from Google's search results but also from YouTube and other portals, including those of media organisations. His petition includes references to videos and reports of a third incident - a brawl in 2013 involving him at a restaurant in Mumbai. No police case was registered in this matter and Mr Kaushik was not taken to court.

While acknowledging that RTBF is a complex issue, Mr Kaushik's lawyer Akshat Bajpai questioned why any content which "does not serve any great public purpose" and affects an individual's right to live with dignity should be online.

"It is a complex techno-legal policy issue that will require a multifaceted intervention and a very difficult balancing of interests," Mr Bajpai added.