InternetLab took the opportunity to interview Julia Powles (legal researcher at the University of Cambridge) on the right to be forgotten (RTBF) as she was briefly visiting Brazil in order to participate in the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br)’s VII Seminar on Privacy and Personal Data, which took place in São Paulo in August 2016. The interview was conducted by InternetLab’s director Francisco Brito Cruz and the head of the surveillance project Jacqueline Abreu.

According to Julia Powles, the very term “right to be forgottten” is quite controversial and it raises some important concerns. This is because it makes us deal with questions regarding both freedoms and anxieties caused by the greater “digitalization” of many aspects of our lives, and how this information can be accessed and used by numerous parties, known and unknown.

The full interview is available in video (below), and it was transcribed by InternetLab. Julia Powles commented on the main outcomes and conflicts that arise from the implementation of the European decision on the right to be forgotten, providing arguments for a critical analysis of the Brazilian leading cases and legislative landscape. With this work, we at InternetLab wish to contribute, in a qualified way, to the discussions on the theoretical limits of this new – but impactful – legal concept.

What is the right to be forgotten?

EU: the right to be forgotten understood as de-indexation

Jurisdiction and decision-making: the limits of the right to be forgotten

Right to be forgotten in Brazil: leading cases

How to reconcile memory and forgetting?

Risks in the implementation of the right to be forgotten

Full interview