Man’s ‘right to be forgotten’ case stalls after he is found on the Bitcoin blockchain
A Dutch man has had his legal case against a Tech giant referred to the European Court of Justice after it was revealed that he had uploaded his identity onto the Bitcoin blockchain. It is believed to be the first case of its kind involving blockchain technology. One person close to the case said that the local civil law judge was compelled to refer the case to a higher authority as she did not have the expertise to make a judgement involving Bitcoin, she wasn’t even sure what it was.
Under Article 12 of the European Union’s 1995 Data Protection Directive a person can ask for personal data to be deleted once that data is no longer necessary. The claimant in question had made several requests of the internet giant to remove articles, containing his personal information, from their search engine. After his requests were unsuccessful the man sought the assistance of the courts.
The trial looked to be going in favour of the man until the defence team revealed that the man himself had logged some of the same personal information on the Bitcoin blockchain. The Bitcoin blockchain is a decentralised, distributed, peer-to-peer ledger which anyone can download and is available online for all to see. Proponents of the Bitcoin blockchain point to immutability and transparency as two of its key features. The defence team drew out these points and claimed that they too should have the right to present the man’s personal information if it was also being presented on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Whilst it is unlikely that this defence will stand up when the case is renewed, it does highlight the conflict between the immutability of blockchains and people’s right to be forgotten. In this particular instance the claimant’s lawyers are likely to argue that encrypted information on a blockchain is very different to unencrypted information indexed on the web.
Beyond this case the situation is likely to become murkier as companies look to leverage blockchain technology for applications that require personal data. How will such companies comply with data protection regulations when they have no way of removing data from a blockchain (be it their own or another’s)?
The dangers of technology are very real. Look after yourselves out there.
