Google has just lost a court case in Finland. The Supreme Administrative Court of Finland decided today that the search engine giant has to remove search results from its index that include the personal details of a convicted murderer.
The case was brought against Google by the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsmand, the government entity that enforces privacy regulation in Finland. The Ombudsman's office asked Google to remove the results back in 2016, but the search giant refused, citing public interest and freedom of speech.
At the core of the dispute is a murder case that happened in 2012. The man in question was found guilty of murder but was also deemed to be mentally unstable. He was jailed for 10 years but was released last year.
In today's decision, The Supreme Administrative Court decided that the ability for anyone to find details of this person's medical history and illness on Google was detrimental to his life, extending beyond the prison time he served for his crimes.
Google now has to remove all search results listed on the court case from its index. Obviously, the information itself will stay in the Internet, but Google won't show links to those pages anymore.
At the core of the dispute is a murder case that happened in 2012. The man in question was found guilty of murder but was also deemed to be mentally unstable. He was jailed for 10 years but was released last year.
In today's decision, The Supreme Administrative Court decided that the ability for anyone to find details of this person's medical history and illness on Google was detrimental to his life, extending beyond the prison time he served for his crimes.
Google now has to remove all search results listed on the court case from its index. Obviously, the information itself will stay in the Internet, but Google won't show links to those pages anymore.
