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The impact of the EU Google ruling for jobseekers


Submitted by Charlotte Attwood on Thu, 29/05/2014 - 14:35
The impact of the EU Google ruling for jobseekers

It is inevitable that employers will search potential candidates on the internet to find out more about them. Alongside a CV, recruiters and employers now have the power to search candidates online and the difference between these results and a CV is clear. A CV you control – the presentation, the content and the format. Your online profile and what results get returned in the search engines are primarily out of your control.

It is not just negative images about yourself you don’t want seen, it may be any of your political views, donations, twitter posts and forum comments on any subject that you want kept private. How recruiters and employers view these results is very personal and of course can be privately discriminatory. It may be related to a perceived personality fit in the office or unjust perceptions from content added years ago. Images, video’s and information about you may show when googling your name with or without your consent.

This issue has been a popular conversation lately after one victim of this – Mario Costeha Gonzalez wanted to remove a search result in Google which shows that his house was auctioned after he experienced some financial difficulties.

As a subsequent, the EU court is allowing people to have the “right to be forgotten”. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that search engines such as Google and Bing must delete personal search information that is considered outdated by users.  The outcome is that Google and other search engines have to remove certain links and personal information about people from search results within the EU or they will face a fine.

Straight after the story came out about this ruling, thousands of people came forward to request their right to be forgotten. Over 1,000 of these requests were said to be made by those who have criminal convictions.

Given the importance of making the right step in a career or even internal promotions, this is an important ruling for jobseekers.  This may be a factor that will stop you from getting your dream job when your potential employer Googles your name and finds photos of you on a drunken night out or even social media posts you may have posted years ago. Paris Brown allegedly posted offensive statements on Twitter a few years prior to accepting a job as a Youth police crime commissioner. She was forced to resign as a result after just 6 days. Now if you Google her name the tops results will show articles calling her “foul mouthed” and “offensive”.  Whilst this may be an extreme case and also shows the danger of social media, the point is that once your “image” is tarnished or even not presented in the right way on Google there was never any opportunity for recourse.

Now that has seemingly changed.  It is important to remember that employers look much further than just a CV now when looking for new employees. They search the internet for more information and online profiles to build a perception of that person. Google is now reportedly readying a tool that would allow folks in Europe to request the company to remove search results about them. Google already has ways for users to request the removal of content from the search engine. However, it is limited in scope compared to this new tool that could allow a person to request the removal of content and is backed up by The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).  Google said it would assess each request and balance “privacy rights of the individual with the public’s right to know and distribute information.  When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information,”.  Users will need to provide links to the material they want removed, their country of origin, and a reason for their request. Individuals will also have to attach a valid photo identity. Essentially there is still no absolute guarantee that Google will act on your request but at least a mechanism will be in place.