The Data Processing Concept After If Google Spain and its influence on Brazilian Society

Abstract

 The information economy challenges personal data protection because it represents an obstacle to the big corporations’ economic interests within this market. The companies which operate the searching websites, that before had only profits, face nowadays legal battles in order not to be bound to personal data protection legislation. The leading case, known as Google Spain must be considered as a landmark in such process given the European Court of Justice’s interpretation of the Directive 95/46/CE considering that the search engines shall be considered as personal data processing because the data which are inserted by the users are collected, stored, disclosed within certain classification order. As a matter of fact, personal data processing is stated by law in open terms due the fact that one cannot freeze the law that suffers constantly the impact of new technologies. The Spanish Law played an important role through its Supervisory Authority, named Agencia Española de Protección de Datos Personales – AEPD, that since 2007 had conclued that the search engines are activities that process personal data. Such findings were reaffirmed one year later by the Working Party, WP 29 opinion n. 148 (April 4th 2008) in which it was clear that the searching websites shall to be considered personal data processing. This paper intends to analyze the statements raised within this subject. In other words if the search engines are data processing, the searching websites’ operators must follow the personal data protection legislation that ensures rights to the data’s subject such as the right to correct, cancel or delete his information. In Brazil, the Internet Civil Rights Framework, know as Marco Civil da Internet, has dealt with personal data protection superficially within article 7º, inc. VIII, IX and X, the last one states the right to cancel or delete personal information which is repeated at article 10. This research aims to investigate that these legal statements could be considered the legal basis for the right to unindexation as it was affirmed by the European Court of Justice. To sum up, it points out the necessity of harmony among the laws to ensure an effective personal data protection worldwide no matter neither where the data are processed nor where the search engines’ operators are established another question judged by this important precedent.