PU Prof’s Research Paper appreciated at World Conference

Chandigarh, September 9, 2022: Prof. Dr. Jyoti Rattan, Professor of Law, Department of Laws Panjab University, Chandigarh, made a Zoom presentation at the World Conference of the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) 2022 organized in close cooperation with the Instituto Nacional de Administracao (INA) and the Instituto Superior de Ciencias e Politicas (ISCSP) and other international partners in Lisbon, Portugal, from 6 to 9 September 2022.

Highly appreciated, her current burning topic was “Equal Treatment: Law Relating To Right To Be Forgotten (RTBF); An Examination Of Some Judicial Decisions With Special Reference To The European Union And India.” She presented the latest situation about the Right To Be Forgotten in the European Union, European Economic Area (EEA), and India.

Other countries like the 27 countries of the European Union and 3 countries of the European Economic Area, the USA, and the UK already have Right To Be Forgotten laws in place. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), 2018, is called the world’s toughest privacy law dealing with the Right To Be Forgotten.

But in India, we still do not have a separate data privacy law covering The Right To Be Forgotten. However, in India too, Data Privacy is still and serious issue. But, unfortunately, only last month on 3 August, the Government had withdrawn the Data Protection Bill, 2021, that had provisions regarding The Right To Be Forgotten. Hopefully, the Government would reintroduce in Parliament an amended version very soon in the interest of Indian citizens.

This new problem has emerged in the 21st Century due to the increasing use of all-powerful social media, modern information and communication technologies, and the internet that has no national boundaries. Any information travels all over the world in no time via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and search engines like Google.

Dr. Jyoti Rattan explained that many times such information is not corrected, updated or deleted and keeps circulating as such on social media, information superhighways in the virtual world. But this has an impact in the real world that cannot be ignored. In case the old or incorrect information is not quickly updated or deleted from all the online platforms, it might form a negative image about an individual in the mind of the reader, viewer, or an employer.

Giving an example, Dr. Rattan said that a person might have been charged in Court and the case is flashed on social media all over the world. But later he is set free and this is not updated or deleted on social media. So, an employer having old information may become prejudiced about a person beforehand, and may not employ him treating him unfairly. It is for such an affected person that The Right To Be Forgotten is the only legal remedy, if such a law is there. But in India, we are yet to have a specific law to provide relief to such or similar individual in the country.