The Right to Be Forgotten: Theoretical Legal Questions and Comparative Analysis

Сurrent digital transformation of society implies not only the development of technological foundations in a kind of "isolation" from law: many aspects of legal transformation are not separated from social life. Emerging social practices and institutions have a significant impact on law, and one of the cornerstone issues is personal data protection which can be implemented through the right to be forgotten. This Master's Thesis concerns the genesis of the right to be forgotten, key aspects of the correlation between the right to be forgotten and other human rights, as well as a comparative legal analysis of the regulation of this institution in relation to the Russian Federation and several foreign jurisdictions. The purpose of this study is theoretical and legal identification of the content of the right to be forgotten and determination of its position in the system of human rights. In order to achieve this purpose, Mater’s Student examined the historical preconditions for the formation of the concept of the right to be forgotten at the theoretical level, studied the phenomenon of "oblivion" through the lens of philosophical understanding, analyzed legal regulation and law enforcement practice in the context of the right to oblivion in the Russian Federation, the United States, the European Union and several other foreign countries to identify common patterns and opposing trends, identified the place of the right to oblivion in the system of human rights compared with the right to privacy and freedom of speech as well as the remedies protecting the right to be forgotten provided at international and national levels were examined and analyzed. Chapter I is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of "oblivion" in philosophical understanding and dialectical unity of memory and oblivion as social constructs, the history of formation and development of the right to be forgotten in theoretical thought and analysis of the construction of the right to be forgotten as a human right and as an intangible good. Chapter II analyzes the right to be forgotten through the prism of doctrine and caselaw in relation to other human rights, including freedom of expression and the right to privacy. The final chapter of this Master’s Thesis is dedicated to the comparative legal analysis of the right to be forgotten in the Russian Federation, the United States, the European Union and a number of other foreign countries as well as the analysis of the European Court of Human Rights caselaw. Keywords: right to be forgotten, right to privacy, personal data, freedom of expression, privacy, celebrity rights, autonomy of will, information, intangible goods, human rights, European Court of Human Rights, Internet.