On October 27, 2020, the Court of Appeals of Santiago (Role No. 16.010-2020), rejected the Appeal for Protection filed against the search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo and the encyclopedic web Wikipedia (the respondents).

The facts that motivated the appeal were that the appellant had been denounced in a newspaper report as the alleged author of illegal conduct of a sexual nature, by virtue of which the Public Ministry initiated an investigation, concluding with the definitive dismissal of the appellant.

In this regard, the complainant pointed out that the information published by the defendants in connection with the investigation constituted an arbitrary and illegal act, since it violated his rights to psychological integrity and privacy. He based his claim on the protection of the “right to forget”, linking it to the right to cancel personal data under Law 19.628 on the protection of private life.

The Court of Appeals of Santiago described the “right to forget” as the aspiration of a person to the elimination of information that causes him harm and that is contained in computer systems connected to the world information network.

Likewise, the Court indicated that such right is not established in the Chilean legislation and that search engines are not responsible for the data created by users, but that their function is limited to indexing the information, which is created by third parties under the protection of the freedom to express an opinion and to provide information.

Finally, he ruled out the violation of fundamental guarantees because the information indexed was true and current (not outdated).

It is worth mentioning that the case is not firm and enforceable, and the appellant may infer an appeal to the Supreme Court.

In case you require additional information on this matter, you may contact Jorge Tisné (jtisne@jdf.cl).