The right to be forgotten will restrict freedom of speech and the fight against corruption

STATEMENT

of the International Foundation for the Protection of Freedom of Speech "Adil soz"

On March 13 a large, almost all-encompassing draft law entitled "On Amendments and additions to certain legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the promotion of innovation, the development of digitalization and information security" was  published on the web-site of regulatory legal acts (https://legalacts.egov.kz/npa/view?id=8062189 ) The author is the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 

Among many other things, the authors  of the bill propose to make amendments to the law "On Informatization". Namely, they offer to introduce the right to be forgotten: "Upon request of an individual or his legal representative the owner of an Internet resource is obliged to remove outdated or irrelevant information from the search data in accordance  the submitted Internet resource identifier."

Information about previously committed crimes and even minor frauds may appear "irrelevant" or "outdated" to officials and others who want to hide the unsightly facts of their biography.

The officials lobbying for these amendments refer to the European experience but their arguments are completely groundless, since today there is no such  international legal norm as the right to be forgotten and no legally adopted regulation of this issue.

The "right to be forgotten" contradicts the constitutional right to seek and receive information and creates an obvious imbalance between private and public interests. The introduction of this rule will de facto introduce censorship, block journalistic investigations and stymie anticorruption efforts.

We believe the introduction of the" right to be forgotten " in Kazakhstan is premature and dangerous, and we demand to exclude this provision from the draft law.