Celebrating Privacy Day: The Right to be forgotten and individual Privacy in the digital Age

Abstract: This thesis explores the current status of privacy in the context of the upcoming implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and, more precisely, focuses on the redefined Right to be forgotten as its most controversial component. Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of critical discourse analysis was deployed to show how the Right to be forgotten is reshaping the privacy discourse in the age of big data, digitalization, surveillance and data driven business. Qualitative content analysis was used to serve critical discourse analysis as the first stage of the three dimensions, which built the foundation for the analysis of the broader discursive and societal practices. The digital age requires a rethinking of privacy in terms of the protection of personal data due to the embeddedness of technology in everyday life, big data, easy retrieval and cheap cloud storage. Forgetting and remembering are two facets that constitute human behavior but within the regime of technological advancements, both have lost, or changed their meaning. The new legislative framework aims to enhance forgetting but seems more of a façade to legitimate remembering. Several online blog posts written by experts in diverse fields of knowledge have shown that the current legislative framework is no longer sufficient due to technological change and unequal hegemonic relations, which contribute to reshaping the privacy discourse. The thesis does not give a final answer to the questions raised but contributes to the debate and to a comprehensive understanding of the new legislation in Europe.