Federal Court of Appeal rules against Google in privacy law case

CITYnews halifax\ By The Canadian Press

The Federal Court of Appeal has rejected an attempt by Google to overturn a decision that found the company’s search engine is covered by Canada’s privacy law, marking another victory for people seeking a digital “right to be forgotten.”

The court ruled Friday in a 2-1 decision to uphold a 2021 decision by the Federal Court.

The federal privacy commissioner referred the case to the Federal Court asking if Google’s search engine should be excluded from the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act after a man alleged Google was breaching Canada’s privacy law.

In the complaint, the man alleged that internet searches of his name using Google were yielding links to news articles about him containing outdated, inaccurate, and sensitive information.

The man asked Google to remove the articles in question from the results for searches of his name, but the company declined, suggesting instead that he contact the publishers of the news items.

The lower court ruled federal privacy law applies when Google indexes web pages and presents search results in response to searches of a person’s name.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2023.