Judgment of the Court of Justice Grand Chamber, 8 December 2022, Google De-referencing of allegedly inaccurate content, C‑460/20

• Date: 08 December 2022
• Year: 2022

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II. PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA

Judgment of the Court of Justice (Grand Chamber), 8 December 2022, Google (De-

referencing of allegedly inaccurate content), C‑460/20

Link to the full text of the judgment

Reference for a preliminary ruling – Protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of

personal data – Directive 95/46/EC – Article 12(b) – Point (a) of the first paragraph of Article 14 –

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 – Article 17(3)(a) – Operator of an internet search engine – Research carried out

on the basis of a person’s name – Displaying a link to articles containing allegedly inaccurate information

in the list of search results – Displaying, in the form of thumbnails, photographs illustrating those articles

in the list of results of an image search – Request for de-referencing made to the operator of the search

engine – Weighing-up of fundamental rights – Articles 7, 8, 11 and 16 of the Charter of Fundamental

Rights of the European Union – Obligations and responsibilities of the operator of the search engine in

respect of processing a request for de-referencing – Burden of proof on the person requesting de-

referencing

The applicants in the main proceedings, TU, who occupies leadership positions and holds shares in

various companies, and RE, who was his cohabiting partner and, until May 2015, held general

commercial power of representation in one of those companies, were the subject of three articles

published on a website in 2015 by G-LLC, the operator of that website. Those articles, one of which

was illustrated by four photographs of the applicants and suggested that they led a life of luxury,

criticised the investment model of a number of their companies. It was possible to access those

articles by entering into the search engine operated by Google LLC (‘Google’) the surnames and

forenames of the applicants, both on their own and in conjunction with certain company names. The

list of results provided a link to those articles and to photographs in the form of thumbnails.

The applicants in the main proceedings requested Google, as the controller of personal data

processed by its search engine, first, to de-reference the links to the articles at issue from the list of

search results, on the ground that they contained inaccurate claims and defamatory opinions, and,

second, to remove the thumbnails from the list of search results. Google refused to accede to that

request.

Since they were unsuccessful at first instance and on appeal, the applicants in the main proceedings

brought an appeal on a point of law before the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice,

Germany), in the context of which the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice) made a request to

the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of the GDPR

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and Directive 95/46

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.

By its judgment, delivered by the Grand Chamber, the Court develops its case-law on the conditions

which apply to requests for de-referencing addressed to the operator of a search engine based on

rules regarding the protection of personal data.

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It examines, in particular, first, the extent of the

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Article 17(3)(a) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural

persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General

Data Protection Regulation) (‘the GDPR’) (OJ 2016 L 119, p. 1).

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Article 12(b) and point (a) of the first paragraph of Article 14 of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24

October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (OJ

1995 L 281, p. 31).

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Judgments of 13 May 2014, Google Spain and Google (C -131/12, EU:C:2014:317) and of 24 September 2019, GC and Others (De-referencing

of sensitive data) (C-136/17, EU:C:2019:773) and Google (Territorial scope of de-referencing) (C-507/17, EU:C:2019:772).