Do you want an insurer or other organization to delete your personal data? Some websites are well prepared for the right to forget and have an online form available or you can call a special phone number. If this is not the case, you can invoke the right to be forgotten in writing, by letter or e-mail. The Dutch Data Protection Authority has drawn up this sample letter that you can use as a basis for your text. This authority has been appointed by law to supervise the correct processing of personal data.

Search engine Google is a master in collecting and displaying data. Maybe yours too. Before you let yourself be ‘ungoggled’ in the context of the right to forget, you have to take a few things into account. For example, Google as a search engine only offers a reference to the website where the information can be found. If you have the search results removed, they still exist in that place, but you can no longer find them via Google.

Do you really want to make information disappear completely? Then start at the source, the website where your name or other information about you is listed. If that data is no longer relevant, the site administrator has to get to work and remove the info. This is sometimes a requirement for Google: as long as the source has not removed data, the search engine continues to show a result.

Do you want to remove your data from the search results? Then use this Google form . Indicate per search result why the page is about you and why the inclusion of this website as a search result is outdated, irrelevant or otherwise objectionable.

As a result of the right to be forgotten, you sometimes read after a Google search : ‘Some results may have been removed under European data protection law.’ Someone has then successfully exercised the diritto all oblio definizione.

Sometimes an organization or (government) body is legally obliged to use your data or to keep it for a certain period of time. Then that party does not have to delete your data if you ask. Think of the processing of personal data by the tax authorities.

It is also possible that your name has been incorporated in a journalistic story. The processing may then fall under the right to freedom of expression and information. A website will then not quickly remove a name, unless the creator wants to do this out of leniency.

Is your application not honored? In that case, it must be made clear to you why your right to be forgotten has been rejected. In your opinion, is a party not complying with the GDPR and the right to be forgotten has not been implemented properly? Then you can report your privacy complaint, with substantiation, to the Dutch Data Protection Authority via this online form.