Stride Post Latest News
Related Articles
Right To Be Forgotten
Right to be forgotten has “broad powers”. It is therefore easy to imagine that privacy will be use selectively to muzzle the inconvenient and limit freedom. But an even broader concern is that the “right to be forgot” undermines the very idea of online free speech.
Whistleblower Edward Snowden summed up this point in a 2015 interview with Charlie Rose. Asked whether the right to be forgot can suppress evidence that would convict a criminal, he replied: “Absolutely”. The problem with such a response is that, without such evidence, the only way to hold the guilty accountable is to reveal what they are.
Systematically
Indeed, it is because Google is able to systematically exclude links to sites that carry inaccurate information that we rely on the internet for its vitally important role as a public relations tool. By making it easy to find answers to questions, news about our politicians and business leaders and the details of their daily lives can be made readily available. It is how we judge them.
But if people are not made aware of the facts about a public figure, they will be tempted to avoid accepting the truth. This may be a good thing if the alternative is fraudulent politicians or false claims. But a system that excludes accurate information from the public domain removes opportunities for democratic scrutiny of those with power and for holding them accountable.
Disclosing Information
The act of disclosing information that is harmful to a person, community, nation or institution is one of the most important mechanism we have for countering it. And right to be forgot is incompatible with the principle that public figure should be held accountable for the thing they say and do, since it would hinder the ability of the public to act on the basis of information they may believe to be correct.
Opponent of the right to be forgot warn that it will create an “information jungle” in which hyperpartisan and unverified claims will appear alongside the genuine article. But this is not a reason to back away from implementing it. There are already political lobbies arguing for new laws that would make it harder for citizens to access information that would confirm or discredit some of their more outlandish beliefs.
Implement
Our political leader would do well to reject such efforts and implement the “right to be forgot”. Only by making it easier for people to access relevant information about their leaders will they be able to judge them appropriately. Andy Haldane is chief economist of the Bank of England and Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford
Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, said the information systems are “now in our national security interests”. Mr Parker said the security services should be confident that terrorists will not be able to exploit an ever-expanding array of hacking devices.
Specific Challenge
He warned: “Every now and then we face a specific challenge. We’re always going to have to be vigilant and we’re always going to have to keep people as safe as we possibly can. And we have to be confident that the terrorists aren’t going to find a device that will give them a spectacularly successful way to bring down a plane or to get access to some of the more forward-looking defenses that we use. That’s the challenge that we face.”
He said the security services are constantly learning from new types of threat and finding new ways to counter them. Mr Parker, who is due to retire next year, described such attacks as “very challenging”, adding: “We’re constantly learning, we’re constantly developing and we’re continually adapting to make sure that we have a force that is as sophisticated and as fast as it needs to be.”
Areas For Development
But he added: “In this area, where there are no areas for development, as in pretty much all areas, we have to be pretty careful, because it’s a very challenging area to live with and we have to do the best we can.” There is currently a review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which gives the intelligence services extraordinary powers to monitor all electronic communications in the UK.
The Home Office said the review is looking at how the law can keep pace with modern technology. Computer security groups have expressed concern about the government’s plans to reform the RIPA Act and privacy campaigners have urged the Government not to increase the amount of information the intelligence agencies can obtain from those who have nothing to hide.
Technology Consultant
Graham Culley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said: “The main concern here is how the Home Office intends to balance citizens’ privacy with the right to know about what is happening around them. “These worrie are compound by the idea of using RIPA power for accessing information held outside of the UK. An approach base on ‘where practicable’ and international co-operation is need, which the government is lacking at present.”
“If the authorities are to work out if people have something to hide, they need to know a lot about people’s activities.” The British government has pass new power to spy on people online to prevent terrorist attacks and cybercrime. The Investigatory Power Bill.
Royal Assent
Which received Royal Assent on Thursday, includes a new power to allow police and intelligence agencies to hack into computers and smartphones if they believe an individual is committing an offence, or to uncover security breaches. But it is also open to potential abuse by the agencies.
Internet giant Google has warned of the potential danger of new powers to hack and gather data from computers, laptops and phones. The firm’s general counsel, Kent Walker, said: “We think it’s important to have a technology sector that is able to continue to thrive in the UK.
Technology
“That mean keeping pace with development in technology and, like the rest of the technology industry, protecting privacy and security in an ever-changing environment.” MPs who voted in favor of the new power proposal is broadly welcome by tech firms – Stephen Duckett
The EU has laid out its proposal for dealing with the public’s “right to be forgot” in Europe, saying that search engine could no longer automatically treat search results as a form of “compell speech”. The proposal was put forward in December by the European Commission.
Search Engine
Which says that a person can request that the search engine remove certain links from its result if it is deem in the public interest to do so. The Commission has stress that the decision will be take by an independent authority.
The “right to be forgot” was first introduce in the landmark European ruling from 2014, but there are concern that the ruling did not provide sufficient protection for people who had no relation to the person’s original search result.
Public Register
The problem is that, although people can request the “right to be forgot” be remove, search engine are still automatically allowing website to remain, including news article and picture. The EU has ask search engines to display text explaining their decisions and maintain a public register containing a record of all requests.
The proposal are broadly welcome by Google and web giant such as Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Bing and LinkedIn, who have all urg the Commission to make its proposal as detail as possible. The right to be forgot “need to be balance against freedom of expression and the right to information, which cannot be deny because of defamation or public interest reasons,” says Google in a blogpost.
Potential
“The Internet has the potential to improve society in countless ways, but the risk to freedom of expression must be balance against the importance of the right to freedom of information and of the right to legal action to prevent the wrongful misuse of personal information online.”
Stephen Duckett, President of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), told The Register that there were concerns about the burden being
