Dutch Surgeon Wins Landmark 'Right To Be Forgotten' Case (theguardian.com)

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Guardian: A Dutch surgeon formally disciplined for her medical negligence has won a legal action to remove Google search results about her case in a landmark "right to be forgotten" ruling. The doctor's registration on the register of healthcare professionals was initially suspended by a disciplinary panel because of her postoperative care of a patient. After an appeal, this was changed to a conditional suspension under which she was allowed to continue to practice. But the first results after entering the doctor's name in Google continued to be links to a website containing an unofficial blacklist, which it was claimed amounted to "digital pillory." It was heard that potential patients had found the blacklist on Google and discussed the case on a web forum. The surgeon's lawyer, Willem van Lynden, said the ruling was groundbreaking in ensuring doctors would no longer be judged by Google on their fitness to practice. "Now they will have to bring down thousands of pages: that is what will happen, in my view. There is a medical disciplinary panel but Google have been the judge until now. They have decided whether to take a page down -- and why do they have that position?" Van Lynden said.

Comments

Yelp

[NicknameUnavailable]

So Yelp is allowed to keep going but medical professionals who impact lives instead of serving food are allowed to "be forgotten?"

Re: Yelp

[Anonymous Coward]

I connected with a woman on usenet years ago who was posting about the clinical misbehaviour (medical, not sexual) of an anonymous gastroenterologist. Upon comparing notes I found I correctly determined it was the same doctor who mistreated me, just from her description of the practice.

A few years later the city's medical officer of health required a 'get checked for hepatitis' notice to be sent to her patients because of improper sterilizing of equipment. I and 6,000 other former patients received that letter. Fortunately, no patient caught it.

That doctor eventually lost her Ontario license after an extended fight and waste of resources. $$$$$ were wasted because of her negligence, thousands were worried about catching a nasty illness.

Former Doctor Farazli and other medical doctors should not be able to hide their negligence so trivially.

Technology is hard.

[Pascoea]

Now they will have to bring down thousands of pages: that is what will happen, in my view. There is a medical disciplinary panel but Google have been the judge until now. They have decided whether to take a page down -- and why do they have that position?" Van Lynden said.

It sounds like Van Lynden doesn't know how the internet works. Google can't "take down" anything. All it can do is remove references from its search results. I would love to hear an explanation for the technical aspects of how this would be done. Are Google's algorithms really that good that they can "de-list" certain websites but only for very specific search terms? What happens when/if this doctor gets put on the naughty list again? Are they required to de-list the next blog that people decide to comment on? This is very interesting from both a "free speech" (and yes, I realize this isn't a US story) and from a technical perspective.

Re:Technology is hard.

[ron_ivi]

DDG gets at least some of their results indirectly from Google.

DuckDuckGo's sources include Yahoo(now Oath) and Bing. ( https://duck.co/help/results/s... ).

And Yahoo gets their results from google. ( https://searchengineland.com/y... )

And Bing gets results from google ( https://www.wired.com/2011/02/... )

Re:Technology is hard.

[AmiMoJo]

In this case the site is still up and listed on Google. It just doesn't come up for searches of that particular person's name.

The right to be forgotten is quite specific and limited in scope.

Good example of what is wrong

[JoshuaZ]

This is a really good example of why the "right to be forgotten" idea is a really bad idea. Aside from issues of free speech, in any reasonable context, patients should have a right to know what problems or potential issues a doctor they have has had. One doesn't even need an American style strong free speech norm to see that this should be unacceptable.

Re:Good example of what is wrong

[Mal-2]

At the same time, people who have been accused of one thing and subsequently "convicted" on a lesser count (or nothing at all) deserve to have the original charge properly tagged with the resolution of the case. A mere retraction after the fact is insufficient. It needs to be in plain view from the moment the original complaint is referenced.

Re:Good example of what is wrong

[93 Escort Wagon]

Apparently the tribunal didn't agree. "The right to privacy is more important than for the public to find information on the judgment of a medical board"

Speaking as an American - I'd love to see a poll showing where European citizens fall on that question. I have a hard time believing they'd agree with the tribunal; but perhaps I just don't understand the average European.

Re:Good example of what is wrong

[ShanghaiBill]

At the same time, people who have been accused of one thing and subsequently "convicted" on a lesser count (or nothing at all) deserve to have the original charge properly tagged with the resolution of the case.

Why should that be the responsibility of a search engine?

Re:Good example of what is wrong

[Torvac]

how is wrong data, fake/old news and lies freedom of speech?

there are examples where people have been acquitted but still appear as murderers/rapist etc. in old articles and ofc in google results.

"right to be forgotten" is shit, a duty and obligation to be correct should be there.

a general right to be forgotten just makes it possible to get away with murder depending on your personal ressources.

Re:Good example of what is wrong

[tlhIngan]

How about this. Someone accuses you of sexual assault. It's proven to be false and you're cleared of all charges, but now, when you Google your name, details of your sexual assault accusation show up.

Right to be forgotten lets you remove that because you're innocent. But the Court of Google means you're a sexual predator forever.

Is that fair?

How about something else - you get arrested for pot smoking when you're 17. When you turn 18, your record gets wiped. But the Court of Google indexed that so now everyone thinks you're a pothead because you got arrested, even though legally you're in the clear, and even worse, your record was actually expunged upon turning 18. But Google and the Internet doesn't care.

Of course, no one would notice - a criminal background check will reveal nothing of either situation - the first was cleared, the second was expunged. But now someone does a simple Google and everyone is suddenly looking at you funny, thinking you're a pothead and sexual predator and why aren't you fired yet.

People lose jobs because of their social media postings, which is why it's generally a good idea to go through what you post and clean it up. But while you can clean up your social media, you can't clean up what Google and the Internet have heard about you, even if it's no longer true. Imagine being denied a job just because of something you were accused of, but didn't do. Even a court of law says you didn't go it. But just because you allegedly did it, you did it.

Re:Good example of what is wrong

[AmiMoJo]

Why should that be the responsibility of a search engine?

Because the search engine is acting as an agent providing information about people, which is regulated by data protection laws.

This problem was actually recognized back in the 80s when such laws first appeared. Databases often contained errors and people tended to trust the computer far too much, so the right to have corrections made was introduced and limits placed on the use of such data.

Imagine if a credit reference agency had a massive black mark on your file that was a mistake. You would want it corrected, right?

"Forgotten" is a bit of a misnomer here.

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

This is an exercise of the right to correct information, not of "the right to be forgotten". The claims are against websites that publish the incorrect information about the disciplinary action that is no longer valid. It is the same as a sentence which has been revoked is removed from your criminal record.

Re:Does anyone have the most important information

[MightyYar]

OK, got it. All this Dutch is killing me! According to this Dutch website, the doctor's name is Rita Kappel and the black list in question is here.

Dr. Rita Kappel you say?

[93 Escort Wagon]

So Dr. Rita Kappel was initially disciplined and her right to practice was suspended because of her postoperative care of a patient - but then her disciplinary action was altered to allow her to continue to practice. However the overall disciplinary action remains intact and on her record.

Do I have those facts regarding Dr. Rita Kappel correct?

Guilt by fake news

[Okian Warrior]

The blacklist lists a 2-year suspension, with an update wayyyyy down the page indicating that the suspension was reduced, as noted in the OP. And you really have to read into the text to find this out.

This comment stood out in the legal proceedings:

"The Central Disciplinary Court has declared a number of complaints components to be (partially) unfounded and has imposed on the plastic surgeon the lower measure of conditional suspension for a period of 4 months with a probationary period of 2 years."

So it seems that some of the original 9 complaints are unfounded, and this is a case of he said/she said, with a dispute of what actually happened.

If we are really serious about combating fake news, then why shouldn't Google have to delist the biased and misleading blacklist, in favor of other more accurate reviews?

I note that Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) complained that doing an image search of him came up with a photoshopped image of his head on a Nazi uniform in the top row. (source) Scott complained to Google and got no response, and only after asking his followers complain did the image get *somewhat* downranked. It's still there in the first page of image results.

He points out that the image came from a twitter account with 15 followers:

“Now, these are real pictures that people have ‘memed up’ on Twitter and somewhere else, but here’s the thing, if you click through to those pictures they are the least, smallest, most minor mention of me compared to everything I’ve been doing for years. So, I’m asking myself, and I’m gonna ask you as well, do you think given that – so one of these clicks through, one of the pictures of me wearing a photoshopped Nazi uniform, if you click through it goes to a fake Twitter account that’s pretending to be me that has only 15 followers.”

Adams asked: “Do you think that a fake Twitter account that has only 15 followers would have enough followers that Google’s algorithm would pick that? Of all the pictures there are of me, there are a lot of pictures of me in the public domain, in articles. I was probably in 25 major articles last year alone, and this one little 15 user fake Twitter account is the fourth image that comes up?”

It seems perfectly reasonable that people should start pushing back against Google's search manipulation, and the "right to be forgotten" seems to be a good first step.

Re:Does anyone have the most important information

[rtb61]

The story being, basically a weekend plastic surgeon that uses a rented theatre and cheap gig economy nurses in surgery, did a quick dirty, boobie deflation job. After sending the gig economy cheap surgery team home, who are too expensive and leaving the victim in the care of general nurse after the weekend surgeon wandered off counting the profits. Well the victim was not quite sealed up and was leaking, a lot, rather than put together a proper surgical team. The doctor sort of botched one up with the nurses available to get the victim done with as fast as possible, costing the surgeon money now and well, quite the awkward mess, all those amateurs in a room and after lots of bleeding and mess an hour and a half latter the patient sealed up.

Going in for surgery, go with a surgeon who works in a real hospital and where you will have doctors and nurses of all sorts on tap. Go to a weekend hacker that rents an surgery by the hour and brings on gig economy party time surgical 'er' specialists, and is looking to make as much profit as possible, as in spend as little as possible and push the gig economy workers out the surgery door as fast as possible.

When going in for surgery, ask which hospital and full time staff, don't go to the rental surgery and the gig economy workers, it's cheaper for a reason. That doctors special gig is https://www.drkappel.nl/ and https://www.drkappel.nl/, when it comes to inflato boobies she works the flip side, deflation. Runs a whole 'Institute' of medical practices web site (I'll bet it wants goggle search to remember that), when in reality a surgeon on the cheap, rented surgery and gig economy surgical staff the cheapest available, to maximise profits and good luck for the victims.

Most people going to a surgery would expect the doctor and the surgical team to know each other well and be practised working together so as not to make mistakes and during and post surgery, a lot of resources accessible for problems, not to be left in the lurch, bleeding out.