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Japanese Court Demands 'Right To Be Forgotten' For Sex Offender (thestack.com)

Posted by timothy on from the burn-your-clippings-too dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A Tokyo court has ordered that Google remove any results linked to the arrest of a sex offender, after a judge ruled that he deserves to rebuild his life 'unhindered' by online records of his criminal history. Citing the right to be forgotten, the Saitma district court demanded the removal of all personal information online related to the conviction. Judge Hisaki Kobayashi argued that, dependent on the nature of the crime, an individual should be able to go through a fair rehabilitation process, which would include a clean sheet on their online records after a certain amount of time has passed. In this case, the unnamed man had requested that information from more than three years ago, related to his child prostitution and pornography crimes, be removed from Google's results.

2 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Re: Seems reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    I think the right to be forgotten should not be invoked for crimes until the VICTIMS have FORGOTTEN it.

  2. Re:Seems reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It is near the top of a very short list of big affronts, because the implementation does not live up to the spirit of the law. Registries increase the risk of recidivism because they ruin the life of the person.

    A criminal who is ready to change his ways finds out that nobody will hire him, nobody will lease to him, and because of this he cannot make ends meet. Even if the frustration alone wasn't enough to push him right back into a life of crime (which it understandably is), the inability to afford food and heat force the issue.

    There is also the issue of vigilantism, which is itself illegal, but registries enable it. These self-appointed judge/jury/executioners decide to dish out a little more punishment whenever they feel like it, and people who are trying to put their lives back together are made vulnerable to injury/death because if the registries.

    I realize the intent if registries is noble. But the application is far from it. Since they don't work out in practice as they are envisioned in theory, they should be eliminated.

    Justice isn't just about protecting the innocent, but also about correct treatment of the reformed.