Right to be Forgotten UK

The "right to be forgotten" is the popular name for the right to erasure set out in Article 17 of the UK GDPR. Although Brexit ended the UK's membership of the EU, the General Data Protection Regulation was retained as UK law in 2021, so the right still applies in essentially the same form. In practical terms it means that, in certain circumstances, you can ask a search engine, a website, or any other organisation that holds your personal data to remove it.

For most people in the UK, the right to be forgotten matters in one specific context: getting a search engine like Google or Bing to stop returning a particular page when someone searches for your name. That process is technically called "delisting" and it does not delete the source page - only the link in the search results. Understanding that distinction is the first step to using the right effectively.

Article 17 of the UK GDPR gives data subjects the right to obtain erasure of personal data without undue delay where one of several conditions applies. The most common ones for online reputation cases are: the data is no longer necessary for the purpose it was collected, you withdraw consent and there is no other legal basis for processing, the data has been unlawfully processed, or you object to the processing and there are no overriding legitimate grounds.

The principle was crystallised long before UK GDPR by the Court of Justice ruling in Google Spain SL v AEPD and Mario Costeja González (2014), which confirmed that search engines are data controllers and can be ordered to delist results. UK case law - notably NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC (2018) - refined how British courts apply the balancing test between privacy and public interest.

A trained reviewer at Google reads each request and weighs the data subject's privacy interest against the public's interest in continuing to find the page. They consider the original publisher's context, your role (private citizen versus public figure), the nature of the information, and the age of the content. You usually receive one of three outcomes: Approved (URL delisted from name-based searches in Europe within a few days), Refused (with a brief reason, often "public interest" or "professional context"), or Partially approved (some URLs delisted, others kept).

The whole cycle commonly takes four to eight weeks, although heavy-news cases can take longer. Google will sometimes contact the publisher to ask for their view, which may also alert the publisher that someone is challenging the article.

Most simple cases - an out-of-date directory entry, a nuisance forum post, an old article about a minor matter - can be handled in-house with a careful, well-evidenced submission. Bring in professional support when the content is defamatory, sustained across multiple publishers, or directly threatening your livelihood. A reputation specialist or data-protection solicitor can pair a delisting request with parallel content removal at source and content suppression so that you tackle both the symptom (the search result) and the cause (the live page).

If you are not sure where to start, our reputation audit identifies the URLs that are realistically delistable and the ones where suppression or legal pressure will work better. For broader context on how delisting fits into a wider strategy, see our guide to removing negative search results.

Roughly half of all UK delisting requests submitted to Google are accepted on the first try, according to Google's own transparency reports. Well-prepared, evidence-led requests typically perform better. Resubmissions and ICO complaints add a meaningful second chance. From start to finish, expect the form submitted and acknowledged within the first week, first decision from Google in weeks 2-8, ICO complaint resolved (if needed) in months 3-6, and court action concluded (if pursued) in months 6-12.

The right to be forgotten is a powerful tool, but it works best as part of a wider strategy rather than a stand-alone fix. Used well, it can quietly remove the worst single result from your search profile within weeks.