The Ethics of Memory in a Digital Age: Interrogating the Right to be Forgotten

The history of the future is now written in bytes. Current and emerging information technologies are mediating and shaping the narratives we built both about ourselves as individuals and ourselves as a collective. These will eventually constitute our future memories. So, what is the function and place for a “Right to be Forgotten” in this context? Does it protect us or is it a form of censorship? The diffusion of web related technologies has been changing the approach people have to access information, manage their data, relate to our world events, establish relationships, etc. To upload and retrieve information (data) on the web became quotidian automatic operations. In particular, the easiness with which personal data get disclosed and risen issues of data ownership has been given a great deal of attention both from a legal and ethical point of view. Public perception of privacy has been in flux for some decades now. Exposure to private matters in public has changed people's ideas of public spaces. Computers and the Internet have unnoticeably blurred or even hybridized these spaces. Following perhaps the enthusiasm of “sharing” and confounding to be on-line with to be on-life, many people are now demanding the ownership and control of their data across all processing phases, including the erasure of their presence in the web. Yet, the demarcation line between the right to erase and the “duty” of memory implies reshaping of centuries of thought and common sense: it is worth remembering and to forget is bad. memories. How will a “Right to be Forgotten” online affect what needs to be remembered and what needs to be not remembered? The aim of this contributed volume is to document current reflections on the “Right to be Forgotten” and the interplay of the value of memory and citizen rights about memory.

SZKELY Ivan;  HOSKINS Andrew;  DE ANDRADE Norberto;  DE TERWANGNE Cécile;  KOOPS Bert Jaap;  KORENHOF Paulan;  BRIGHINI Daniela;  VAN HOBOKEN Joris V.J.;  BREEMEEN Vicky; 

MARTINHO GUIMARAES PIRES PEREIRA Angela;  GHEZZI Alessia;  VESNIC ALUJEVIC Lucia; 

2015-01-07

Palgrave Publishers

JRC87396

9781137428448,   

http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/doifinder/10.1057/9781137428455,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC87396,   

10.1057/9781137428455,