The European Union is attempting to establish the “right to be forgotten online,” as a legislative response to embarrassing old data – risque photographs, stupid statuses – that refuse to disappear. The proposed bit of legislation would enforce higher privacy settings and offer greater user control.

EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding, raised the issue in Parliament:

“I want to explicitly clarify that people shall have the right – and not only the possibility – to withdraw their consent to data processing. The burden of proof should be on data controllers – those who process your personal data. They must prove that they need to keep the data, rather than individuals having to prove that collecting their data is not necessary.”

Interesting that this comes so soon after the US’ ordering Twitter to hand over account data on Wikileaks and its supporters.

[Guardian]