Right to be forgotten in Blockchain: Is GDPR redundant?

Blockchain has become pervasive in all segments and its impact is being felt across the industries. The effective date of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is fast approaching (May 25 th, 2018) and efforts are being made globally to comply with it. The effectiveness of GDPR to comply with the underlying objective is still a challenge which will be known in time to come. However, the technicalities of blockchain has created conflict with GDPR particularly with the companies seeking to implement Blockchain involving the personal sensitive data of the subjects.

The right to be forgotten (Right to Erasure) is a concept where individuals can choose to remove personal data about him or her, from the website or database, if it is irrelevant, redundant or excessive. It has evolved from the case of Google Spain. v Mario Costeja Gonzalez wherein Costeja Gonzalez filed a complaint against a daily newspaper, La Vanguardia and Google Spain to remove the article about his real-estate auction in recovery of social security debts. The court identifying the fundamental right of subjects held that the information in question no longer be made available to the general public on account of its inclusion in such a list of results, those rights override, as a rule, not only the economic interest of the operator of the search engine but also the interest of the general public in having access to that information upon a search relating to the data subject’s name. Read more ...