Kerala HC refuses to expunge suggestions to Google

TIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A division bench of the Kerala High Court has refused to expunge an observation in its 2022 judgment on the right to be forgotten in which it had suggested that Google can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to identify and remove private information from court documents and judgments.

The bench also disposed of the petition filed by Google seeking to review the said judgment.

The search engine platform was upset by another observation in it which said that Google cannot claim to be a mere content blind intermediary and shirk all responsibility when it comes to right to privacy.

"The above rule also requires Google to remove contents based on a court order. In light of the above, it is clear that our observations do not run contrary to the statutory scheme," said the bench.

Regarding the court's observation in the said judgment that "Google can deploy AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools to identify and locate data", the court said that it can be construed as only a suggestion and not a demand.

"These are all matters which will have to be decided in future in the absence of any legislation, inappropriate litigation," clarified the bench.

The court passed the right to be forgotten judgment on December 22, 2022, which dealt with the manner in which the right applies to publication of court judgments and proceedings, in the absence of any specific legislation.

The judgment was delivered on a bunch of pleas moved by litigants seeking the erasure of their personal details that were appearing on Google search and on the legal resource website Indian Kanoon, despite their acquittal in those cases.

Some of the petitioners in the batch of pleas were involved in matrimonial and custody disputes.

"We cannot hold that Google is content blind to the publications made online; can they allow any prohibited nature of content to appear online? For example, paedophilic content," pointed out the court.

Moreover, it opined that in the era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is quite possible for Google to identify the nature of the content and remove the same.