What is your 'right to be forgotten'?

 After the West, nuanced debates on the 'right to be forgotten by the internet have started in India too. So far, they are limited to the corridors of courts. Find out the developments around it

In July this year, reality TV star Ashutosh Kaushik -- who won the Bigg Boss season in 2008 and MTV Roadies 5.0 -- moved the high court of Delhi seeking removal of certain videos and photographs from the internet citing “right to be forgotten.” Kaushik claimed that almost a decade-old incident of drunk driving was still haunting him. And so was an incident of the brawl.

And just a few days later, in August, a Bengali actress approached the same court with almost a similar request. She too wanted her past expunged from the virtual platform, which the woman claimed was hurting her reputation now. In her case, the court observed that the “right to privacy includes the right to be forgotten and to be left alone.”

Videos or photos of juvenile brushes with the law, imprudent social media posts made years ago or a glimpse from an uncomfortable moment may be itched in the virtual memory forever, even if you have long forgotten them. They come across as a shock to many when they google their name. And for the rest of the lot, they are uncomfortable secrets that are out in the open.

And in both cases, people just want their past to be erased. They simply want to be forgotten by the internet.

Internet users in Europe can make use of their right to be forgotten to get any uncomfortable data removed. The right to be forgotten, also known as the right to erasure, is the common name for a right that was first established in the European Union in 2014 after a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union.