Published October 2, 2023, 3:09 pm ET
The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected an attempt by Google to overturn a decision that found the company’s search engine covered by Canada’s privacy law. This marks another victory for people seeking a digital “right to be forgotten.”
The court decided Friday in a 2-1 decision to uphold a 2021 federal court decision.
The federal privacy commissioner referred the case to the Federal Court, asking whether Google’s search engine should be exempt from the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act after a man claimed Google had violated Canada’s privacy law.
In the complaint, the man alleged that Internet searches of his name via Google yielded links to news articles about him that contained outdated, inaccurate and sensitive information.
The man asked Google to remove the articles in question from search results for searches for his name, but the company refused and instead suggested he contact the news publishers.
The lower court ruled that the federal privacy law applies when Google indexes web pages and displays search results in response to searches for a person’s name.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2023.
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