Sexual Predators Have ‘Right To Be Forgotten’ Under EU Law

Ireland’s Minister for Justice—who implemented a broad amnesty for illegal migrants last month—has told parliament that sexual predators have a “right to be forgotten”.

Helen McEntee has told Ireland’s lower parliamentary house that sex offenders have a “right to be forgotten” under European Union law and that the Irish Department of Justice intends to uphold that law.

This is despite McEntee having previously promised to do more to tackle “domestic, sexual and gender-based violence”.

Responding to a question on whether she would intervene on sex offenders having their data scrubbed from search engines, the minister said the relevant legislation was in the hands of the EU, and not the Irish government.

“The right to be forgotten is a data protection right, which the European Court of Justice developed in 2014 after the Google Spain case,” the minister said.

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