21–30 of 70 posts
Old newspapers don't (generally) disappear completely, they just get scarcer and harder to access. I would expect major newspapers to have complete microfilm/microfiche archives of their entire 20th century runs. I would think major libraries would, too. So getting access to a particular newspaper for an arbitrary date generally involves, worst case, a special trip to the offices of the newspaper or a library in the…
Be sure to burn all the archived articles in libraries. We wouldn't want pesky expired history changing our minds. ... wait aren't online archives identical to hardcopy archives.... Silly me, they are totally different.
I'm not defending the ruling but speed of access does make a qualitative difference with genuine implications.
Whilst I don't think 2.5 yrs is the right balance, I do think much reporting should expire to an archive. If a restaurant did something wrong 10 years ago, but clean since (that's in the context of the UK with regular, visible, standards checks), who cares about the old offence? If they're still doing wrong they would probably have other, non-expired, offences in the last 10 years.
Here in Europe we have the concept of rehabilitation of offenders. Whilst the UK has a poor reputation for reform (we go for a more US lock 'em up approach), and Gove leaving Justice looks to have put paid to reform for another decade, we have the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act since early 70s. After a varying period past record is considered spent - 2 yrs prison or more is never spent, the rest expire after a period depending on sentence. Fines expire after 7 years I think.
So the stupidity your child gets into at 18, whilst out drinking, doesn't pop up in searches when 30 and applying for jobs. Legally you don't need to mention it again apart from some exceptions like applying to be a judge or joining police.
The internet is starting to make a mockery of that reasonable intent. The law thinks you can become clean, you have been legally for 15 years, but your potential employer finds a BBC page from 1998, and decides to not extend the offer. That's not reasonable either.
Perhaps news should archive in step with laws such as that. Trivia and public order offences expire quickly, 10 year sentences never. Somehow make it a bit less available behind a paywall, or some credentials. I'm talking of intent not practicality. I realise a mirror elsewhere would render that void.
In the 80s and 90s it was only the exceptional who got background searches. Manually by searching through archives. Reporters would dig into some suspect politician only when it was something major. That's also the wrong balance and meant many things that should have been known in the public interest didn't come to light simply because it was difficult to check.
We should just pass a new law called "The right to scrub your public image", which allows you to control how the public perceives you or your company online. If someone says something unflattering about you, you can force them to delete it. That's basically what all these European "privacy" laws are amounting to.
We should just pass a new law called "The right to scrub your public image", which allows you to control how the public perceives you or your company online. If someone says something unflattering about you, you can force them to delete it. That's basically what all these European "privacy" laws are amounting to.
This appears to be an overzealous extension of the right to be forgotten. The right to be forgotten is a debate worth having as there are individuals that may have historical public records that may be false or no longer in the public interest to be so widely available. E.g: Man falsely but not maliciously accused of rape or murder in press reports and later being exonerated in court without accompanying press report…
I think the "right to be forgotten" should be replaced with the "right to not have old information considered", which is a much better compromise between the public interest and privacy. In your example, a person false accused of a crime wouldn't have the record expunged, but the record would be heavily tagged with notices that it was a false accusation, and it would be illegal to use that information in considering…
In the relationship case its basically pretty much impossible to legislate norms of behaviour in any reasonable period of time (it would be multi-generational if possible at all). For the job applications we all know hiring managers discriminate even when its against the law due to either their explicit or implicit biases. They can find very reasonable and legal explanations for rejection that they probably even sincerely believe themselves.
This appears to be an overzealous extension of the right to be forgotten. The right to be forgotten is a debate worth having as there are individuals that may have historical public records that may be false or no longer in the public interest to be so widely available. E.g: Man falsely but not maliciously accused of rape or murder in press reports and later being exonerated in court without accompanying press report…
Probably, there should be a legal mechanism similar to US FoIA regarding the personal information collected by non-governmental entities, in accordance to which it could be possible to request the dossier collected by a company on you and use it as a protection from discrimination (as in your first example).
We should just pass a new law called "The right to scrub your public image", which allows you to control how the public perceives you or your company online. If someone says something unflattering about you, you can force them to delete it. That's basically what all these European "privacy" laws are amounting to.
I've always kind of thought a better system would be one that lets you assume a new identity. This is a war that laws won't win. Data will get out, and once it's out, it's near impossible to get back. And people do make mistakes that shouldn't haunt them for the rest of their lives. A better system is one that lets you disassociate with that data.
Counter View. I don't expect this to sit well with HN. Is everything to be a sentence for life? I, and the law in many places, don't think that's fair. Whilst I don't think 2.5 yrs is the right balance, I do think much reporting should expire to an archive. If a restaurant did something wrong 10 years ago, but clean since (that's in the context of the UK with regular, visible, standards checks), who cares about the o…
The difficulty here is the mismatch between what people are normally capable of maintaining in their consciousness either individually or local community and what we get from information systems who can record minutiae indefinitely.
Before when records were not accessible across jurisdictions for example, there are now reconstructed records of someone being chased out of town for some misdeed and goes and invents a new life for themselves. This is not possible in today's world, unless you're willing to move to third tier countries.
Now, there is good and bad in that. But there is also good and bad in everyone's history pertinent or not being available to everyone curious enough to execute a search.
People are not machines and I believe should have the right to have some kinds of information about them remain unavailable to other regular people for whom that information has no legal consequence to them.
We should just pass a new law called "The right to scrub your public image", which allows you to control how the public perceives you or your company online. If someone says something unflattering about you, you can force them to delete it. That's basically what all these European "privacy" laws are amounting to.
I've always kind of thought a better system would be one that lets you assume a new identity. This is a war that laws won't win. Data will get out, and once it's out, it's near impossible to get back. And people do make mistakes that shouldn't haunt them for the rest of their lives. A better system is one that lets you disassociate with that data.
Instead, what they want is to selectively groom what the internet "remembers" about them. Remove the bad, keep the good.