Identity Construction and the Right to be Forgotten: the Case of Gender Identity

Abstract

The Internet’s World Wide Web (web) is increasingly used as people’s primary source of information (Castells, 2010: 382). The technological developments that add to and increase our capacity for data storage and transport have grown explosively in quality and quantity during the last decades (Mayer-Schönberger, 2009), resulting in the growing and generally persistent memory of the web. With the help of search engines, information can be retrieved relatively easily. This easy and long-term accessibility of information has caused, and still is causing, concern when it comes to personal information. In order to deal with such concerns and provide individuals with the means to oppose the persistent digital memory about them, Article 17 of the proposed General Data Protection Regulation hereinafter Proposal (EC European Commission, 2012) was developed. This provision entails a ‘right to be forgotten and to erasure’ (hereafter: RtbF).2