Google – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

The controller is Google and the data subject is a plastic surgeon. One of data subject's patients filed a complaint against data subject in 2014 for a lack of aftercare after an operation. This led, ultimately, to a procedure before the Central Disciplinary Tribunal for Health Care, of which the result was that data subject was conditionally suspended for a period of four months, with a probationary period of two years. Now, when googling the data subject's name, links to certain websites (www.zwartelijstartsen.nl and www.drimble.nl) appeared between the search results. These links referred to articles that mentioned the data subject's name, their BIG number (unique identifier for health care personnel), their speciality, and the ruling of the Disciplinary Tribunal which led to the data subject's suspension. In 2017, the data subject requested Google to remove the links. Google rejected this request and stated that the URLs in the search results were justified by the essential interest of the general public to have access to them. The data subject then brought the issue to Court, [https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2018:8606&showbutton=true&keyword=C%2f13%2f636885%2fHA+RK+17-301 and the Court of First Instance upheld their claim.] Google then filed for appeal. The Court of Appeal conducted a balancing test pursuant to Article 21 GDPR, and found that Google's interests and that of third parties, outweighed the data subject's interest. Hence, the right to freedom of information of Google and third parties outweighed the right to privacy and protection of personal data of the respondent. In this regard, the Court considered that established case law (GC and others, and CJEU Costeja), in which it is stated that, in principle, the public's right to freedom of information must give way to the right to privacy and protection of personal data. However, according to the Court, in this case there were special circumstances, because of whi