Published On: July 27, 2026
Authored By: Layan Fathima
CUSAT
Introduction
The internet, as they say, never forgets. A newspaper report from many years ago, an accusation of crime where the individual was eventually acquitted, an adolescent misstep on social media, or even details posted online without explicit consent may follow a person indefinitely as search results and digital records. Though this technological permanence has expanded access to information and strengthened transparency, it has presented a novel challenge to law: should there be an ability to escape one’s past as recorded on digital platforms? The Right to be Forgotten (RTBF), in this context, represents perhaps the most prominent legal answer to this question. Broadly speaking, RTBF is the right of a person to demand that certain pieces of personal information about them, which have ceased to be relevant, or which are excessive, inaccurate or harmful, be removed, de-indexed or restricted. RTBF rose to global prominence following a European court decision affirming that individuals should have more control over their digital identities. Since then, many jurisdictions have struggled to strike a balance between an individual’s right to privacy and society’s need for access to information. In India, this discussion has been revived in recent years, following the recognition of privacy as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.[1] The digitisation of everyday life has converted personal information into a permanent public record, with consequences that often extend well beyond the context in which it was originally published.
However, invoking RTBF also raises a difficult constitutional conflict. Freedom of speech and expression under the Constitution necessarily involves the public’s right to access information; journalism, archives, court records and academic writing all depend on information being accessible and in the public domain. Granting individuals an unfettered right to have information removed from public sight could open the door to censorship, the manipulation of history and the unjustified silencing of public scrutiny. This debate therefore transcends a simple conflict between privacy and expression; it raises a more fundamental question of how society should approach memory. This paper argues that the Right to be Forgotten should not be viewed as a right to rewrite the past, or as a route to a perpetual state of digital absolution. Instead, it should be framed as a measure designed to prevent disproportionate and continuing harm caused by the indefinite persistence of certain personal information on digital platforms. The core question, then, is not whether an individual is entitled to erase their past, but whether society still retains a legitimate and meaningful interest in publicising and making accessible information that no longer serves any real public interest. Drawing on constitutional law, landmark cases, international experience and legislative debate, this paper argues that India must recognise a limited, carefully circumscribed RTBF, one that allows individuals to enjoy their constitutional rights to privacy and dignity while preserving freedom of speech and expression, press freedom, judicial transparency and public accountability. The aim should be an equilibrium that respects liberty and dignity without jeopardising transparency and openness.
Constitutional Foundations of the Right to be Forgotten in India
RTBF draws its primary constitutional roots from Article 21, which states that “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.” Judicial interpretation has broadened this Article well beyond mere physical existence, to encompass life with dignity, autonomy and freedom. Among the most significant of these additions is privacy, most notably confirmed by the Supreme Court in K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India.[2]
Beyond this, the notion of human dignity that underlies India’s constitutional order requires that an individual be treated as something of inherent worth, an end in themselves rather than merely a means. From this constitutionalist perspective, if a person’s continued digital imprint subjects them to constant, ongoing opprobrium and scorn on account of information that has long outlived any real societal need, it can be argued that this undermines their human dignity. RTBF, however, cannot be considered in isolation from Article 19(1)(a),[3] which guarantees every citizen the right to freedom of speech and expression. This right naturally encompasses journalistic and press freedom, the dissemination of information, and the public’s access to data and public knowledge. Any exercise of RTBF to exclude information from public access must therefore be balanced against Article 19(1)(a), so as to avoid giving undue advantage to privacy claims at the expense of free access to information, which remains crucial to preventing undue curbs on democracy in a healthy society.
Judicial Recognition and Development of RTBF in India
Unlike many foreign jurisdictions, where RTBF rests on statutory footing through detailed legislation, the concept has developed in India largely through the judgments of the Supreme Court and various High Courts. Indian jurisprudence has not adopted a singular doctrinal approach to RTBF; rather, it has emerged organically in cases where personal information in the public domain has adversely affected an individual’s privacy, reputation or dignity. A consistent hallmark of the Indian approach has been relative conservatism, at least in its initial stages, treating RTBF not as an independent fundamental right but as an extension of the right to privacy guaranteed under Article 21.[4]
The genesis of RTBF in India can be traced to the landmark decision in Puttaswamy, which recognised privacy as a constitutionally protected fundamental right and emphasised that individuals should retain greater control over their personal data in the digital age. Although the Court did not expressly use the term “Right to be Forgotten,” its reasoning provided the underlying constitutional support that later enabled courts to build on the concept.
Following Puttaswamy, various High Courts have shown increasing willingness to protect individuals from the consequences of digital permanence,[5] recognising a right to de-index or remove data that, as in many foreign jurisdictions, is also referred to as RTBF. Courts have repeatedly been confronted with cases involving acquitted persons, victims of crime, and individuals undergoing rehabilitation who have sought to have information about their past removed from the internet, on the basis that its continued availability, despite the passage of time, is causing disproportionate harm and hardship.
Comparative Perspectives: Lessons from Foreign Jurisdictions
The European Union has arguably developed the most coherent framework for RTBF. Reflecting its traditional prioritisation of privacy, dignity and personal data security, courts in the European Union adopted a paradigm shift with the Google Spain v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (2014) judgment,[6] which established that an individual could demand that search engine results linked to their name be delisted where the information was outdated, irrelevant or excessively intrusive.
This ruling reflected a common understanding across European legal systems that privacy rights encompass a broad conception of an individual’s control over the use and access of their personal data. It recognised that information could remain accessible through search engines long after it had lost public relevance, undermining an individual’s dignity interests. This approach was later codified in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), with Article 17 guaranteeing an individual’s “right to erasure.”[7] This provision allows individuals to have their data erased on a broad range of grounds, including where the data is no longer necessary, where consent has been withdrawn, or where there is no longer any lawful basis for further processing. It is, however, important to note that even the GDPR contains significant exemptions for matters of public interest and freedom of expression, underscoring the risks of unlimited data removal.
The United States takes a markedly different approach. With a constitutional emphasis on freedom of expression under the First Amendment,[8] American courts have generally been reluctant to grant requests to remove legally published information, viewing such requests as a potential constraint on free speech and a threat to press freedom. The American approach places greater weight on an unfettered marketplace of information, in contrast to the European emphasis on informational self-determination. This makes RTBF considerably less common in the United States.
India occupies an intermediate position, with a constitutional framework that protects both free speech and privacy as fundamental rights. India has not developed the same distinct tradition of data protection or the historical jurisprudential basis found in Europe, nor does it share the United States’ comparatively absolute emphasis on free expression and press rights. There is, accordingly, little basis for wholesale adoption of either model.
Instead, India must adapt RTBF to its own socio-cultural realities, where the consequences of digital permanence are often exacerbated by existing social structures. Public shaming, denial of equal employment opportunity, and reputational damage can follow an individual long after an event has ceased to be of public significance. Criminal background checks can have lasting consequences well after an accusation is no longer relevant to the public interest, and personal or family controversies, even where legally resolved, can continue to cast a long shadow.
The crucial lesson from this comparative exercise for India is thus not one of imitation, but of a nuanced integration of the strongest elements of each system, adapted to India’s own constitutional values and social realities.
The Right to be Forgotten as a Threat to Freedom of Expression and Democratic Transparency
RTBF carries undoubted benefits, but its recognition also comes with substantial risks. Critics warn that empowering individuals to request the deletion of information already in the public domain could harm free expression and erode transparency, and could even facilitate an altered, revised version of history. The most significant challenge is presented by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution,[9] which guarantees freedom of speech and expression, encompassing both the right of a person to make information public and the right of the public to receive it.
A democracy cannot thrive if citizens are denied access to facts, records and history. An unlimited application of RTBF could create opportunities for suppression under the guise of privacy protection, potentially exploited by politicians, public figures and powerful individuals seeking to erase records of conduct relevant to their public assessment, including corruption or abuse of power, on the pretext that such records are no longer relevant. Historical records exist so that past mistakes can be learned from, not so they can be deleted at the discretion of a few, on the ground of a supposed absence of “current public interest” or for personal convenience. A broad RTBF could also undermine freedom of the press, a critical pillar of democracy, since the possibility of future deletion may discourage media organisations from archiving information for fear of later legal consequences.
A further difficulty concerns who should decide what constitutes a relevant public interest: the affected individual, the content-hosting platform, or a court of law. Such discretion carries a real risk of inconsistent or arbitrary decisions. These objections tend to proceed from the assumption that the debate concerns whether information should be “forgotten,” when in fact the more accurate question is whether certain information should remain indefinitely accessible even after its public importance has substantially declined. The real challenge, therefore, is not the erasure of history but proportionality. This article argues that the Right to be Forgotten should not extend to a right to delete the past; rather, it should serve as a mechanism protecting against the disproportionate burden created by a permanent, digitised global memory.
Legislative Gaps and the Need for a Clear Framework
While Indian courts have, in recent years, shown increasing respect for privacy and informational autonomy, India has not yet enacted a comprehensive law on the right to be forgotten. Individual instances of judicial intervention, however well-reasoned, cannot alone fill the gap left by a rapidly evolving digital environment; the courts have themselves acknowledged that the law struggles to keep pace with fast-changing technology and often has to step in as a stopgap.
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023[10] (“DPDP Act”) is a welcome initiative to strengthen the right to privacy in India. It enshrines certain rights concerning the use of an individual’s personal data, including the right to have data corrected, updated and erased in specific circumstances. However, it does not establish a “right to be forgotten” analogous to the European model, nor does it offer clarity on the tension between an individual’s right to privacy and the collective right to freedom of expression and access to information.
This legislative gap is not confined to the absence of a statutory “right to be forgotten”; it extends to the lack of a clear procedural framework for how such a right would be implemented in practice, who would bear accountability, how remedies would be pursued, and to what extent transparency would be assured and protected. None of this suggests that a “right to be forgotten” should become a tool to erase history, hinder freedom of expression, limit political speech, or restrict the dissemination of information serving a genuine political, journalistic or scientific purpose; Indian courts are unlikely to tolerate such an outcome. The Indian experience underscores that reliance on constitutional principle alone is unlikely to be sufficient to address evolving technological challenges. Legislative frameworks are needed to translate constitutional principles into clear, workable rules that balance competing interests with certainty.
Critical Analysis: Beyond Privacy and Free Speech
Why the “Privacy versus Free Expression” Framing Is Too Simple
Privacy and free expression offer a convenient but ultimately incomplete framework for approaching RTBF. The debate is, at its core, about the relationship between law and memory in the digital age. Earlier legal frameworks developed in an era where memory naturally faded with time; the internet, by contrast, has made information persist indefinitely.
“Perpetual Punishment”: The Case for RTBF
The strongest argument for RTBF does not rest solely on privacy as protection against intrusive exposure. It rests, rather, on the idea of “perpetual punishment”: when information remains continuously accessible long after its public significance has faded, individuals continue to bear its consequences even where they have no ongoing connection to the original matter. A person acquitted of a criminal offence may still be viewed with suspicion because search results emphasise the original accusation while downplaying the acquittal; someone who made a minor error years earlier may continue to be judged by a fact that no longer reflects who they are. In such cases, the internet functions less as a neutral record and more as an instrument of continued, indefinite punishment.
At the same time, an unrestricted “right to forget” could genuinely harm democratic accountability. An open-ended RTBF would allow citizens, including public figures, to erase inconvenient historical records for political convenience, undermining public accountability. Striking an appropriate balance therefore requires a proportionality approach, one that weighs factors such as the individual’s role in public life, the age of the information, the accuracy of the data, the continuing public interest in disclosure, the severity of harm to the individual, and the availability of less restrictive alternatives. Such an approach recognises that not all data carries equal public weight: some information remains essential to democratic accountability, while other information serves only to perpetuate social stigma and reputational harm. The goal is not that society should “forget” digital information altogether, since digital information does not simply fade the way human memory does. It is, rather, about placing limits on when certain information should no longer exert disproportionate influence over a person’s life, once its relevance has substantially faded, while still upholding transparency, dignity, and the principle that history should not serve as a form of continuous punishment.
Conclusion
The Right to be Forgotten is perhaps one of the most significant legal questions of the digital era. As technology converts personal data into a permanently etched public record, longstanding assumptions about privacy, reputation and rehabilitation are increasingly tested. Yet RTBF should not be conceived of as a free-for-all removal of material into digital oblivion. Freedom of speech, democratic accountability, journalistic integrity and historical record remain vital constitutional interests, and no regime can elevate privacy above these public interests without undermining democratic governance itself.
This paper suggests that RTBF is not fundamentally about a right of erasure, but about whether a piece of information should remain indefinitely retrievable once its original purpose has faded to the point where it now serves only to visit ongoing indignity on the individual concerned. RTBF’s most defensible form draws a clear and necessary distinction between information that retains enduring public value and information that serves no ongoing purpose beyond perpetuating stigma, disrepute or social exclusion. Framed as a proportional and balanced rule, RTBF will remain important: such a rule respects individual dignity while protecting democratic accountability, resting on the straightforward but significant principle that society has a genuine interest in remembering certain facts, but no corresponding interest in recalling every aspect of a person’s history into perpetuity.
References
[1] Constitution of India, art 21.
[2] Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd.) v Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1.
[3] Constitution of India, art 19(1)(a).
[4] Constitution of India, art 21.
[5] X v Registrar General, High Court of Karnataka 2024 SCC OnLine Kar 18.
[6] Google Spain SL v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) (Case C-131/12) [2014] ECLI:EU:C:2014:317.
[7] Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation), art 17.
[8] US Constitution, amend I.
[9] Constitution of India, art 19(1)(a).
[10] Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023.
