Beijing court denies first ‘right to be forgotten’ case

The Haidian District Court of Beijing recently denied an employee’s request to remove the link between his name and that of his previous employer, which has a reputation for being involved in fraud. This is the first case in China to deal with the “right to be forgotten”.

The employee worked for an educational institution in Wuxi from July 2014 to November 2014. In April 2015, the employee undertook a search on a website of an internet company that provides internet search services to the public, and found that by entering his name as a search term, the results included many references to the Wuxi company he had worked for, and that by entering the Wuxi company’s name, information about fraud was listed.

The employee sued the internet company and requested that it delete the link to some damaging key words, grant an aplogy and compensate his loss. The employee asserted that the Wuxi company had a negative reputation within the education industry. The employee alleged that the internet company had violated his right of reputation, right to his name and his right to be forgotten, which should be a part of his general personality rights, by linking his name to the Wuxi company.