Right to Forget
The notion that individuals have a right to determine the development of their life in an autonomous way, without being perpetually or periodically stigmatized as a consequence of a specific action performed in the past.
Origin
The concept draws on a long-standing French legal principle — le droit à l'oubli (the right to oblivion) — under which rehabilitated convicts could suppress republication of their criminal records. Its digital form was established by the Court of Justice of the European Union in the landmark 2014 ruling Google Spain v. AEPD and Mario Costeja González, holding that individuals could demand search engines de-list links to outdated personal data. The right was subsequently codified as Article 17 of the GDPR, which came into force in 2018.