You Can Be Forgotten Online, But Not in the British Library

Before Google, if you wanted to find out about a person, you had to go to a library to pore through newspaper archives and public records. Now a newly-proposed U.K. law may force researchers back to the bookshelves – or at least to the British Library’s website.

New plans from the British government will make it easier for people to delete embarrassing or erroneous information about themselves online. U.K. Digital Minister Matt Hancock said in early August the government would introduce new privacy legislation that would expand “the right to be forgotten,” beyond just search engine results to any personal data held by a third party – from social media sites such as Facebook Inc. to forums run by video game companies, like Germany’s Bigpoint GmbH, which produces massively multiplayer online game Battlestar Galactica.

The law will bring the U.K. in line with the European Union's existing General Data Protection Regulation, which takes effect in May 2018. But the new privacy rules contain exceptions for some official information, including medical records collected by the National Health Service. Also exempt are the internet archives maintained by the British Library, which by law is required to collect a copy of all published material in the U.K. Since 2013, the Library has also been required to archive the entire U.K. web domain once per year.