The right to be forgotten, a European concept that is creeping into Africa
What you need to know:
- Dr Nduati wrote to protest that the photograph, which had been used to illustrate a story about her published three years ago, was used without her consent.
- “Last week you published the list of names of those killed in Garissa. I was shocked beyond words that the first people (security guards) killed in the massacre were not named in the list. They were Kenyan Somali and Muslims. Are they not among the slain heroes? What are you suggesting to their families and friends? They died like cockroaches?”
- “Stop the use of the cliché ‘given the nod’. It’s so overused, it’s tasteless. Another one is ‘oblivious of the danger they are exposing themselves to’, often used in captions of some of the pictures, especially of overloaded motor cycles.
Last week, I had a case that resembles the right to be forgotten, a European concept that is creeping into Africa. In Kenya, we have the Data Protection Bill, which seeks to safeguard personal data from use or disclosure if it is not in the interests of the person.
A person can also request an agency that holds false or misleading personal information to correct or delete it.
The Bill, waiting to be introduced in Parliament, defines “personal data” as information about a person including such things as their criminal or employment history, contact details, financial transactions, private or confidential correspondence, and beliefs and opinions.
Like the right to be forgotten, the Bill is likely to change the way the media inform the public and how public editors do their job.
On March 28, The EastAfrican published a file photograph of a research scientist alongside its front-page story “Kemri jobs, research projects at stake over cash scandal”. The picture is captioned: “Eunice Nduati, a research scientist at Kemri, works in one of the laboratories. The institution is facing a budgetary deficit.”
IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM
Dr Nduati wrote to protest that the photograph, which had been used to illustrate a story about her published three years ago, was used without her consent. It was “irresponsible journalism”, she said. “I received numerous phone calls after this article,” she added. “Most were concerned that a respectable newspaper like The EastAfrican would make such a decision.”
Managing Editor Pamella Sittoni offered to delete her images from the newspaper’s photo library if Dr Nduati did not want them used in future. She did not. “Please accept my sincere apologies,” Ms Sittoni said. “The photograph was used in good faith to illustrate research work at Kemri.”
I will have an opportunity next week to discuss the implications of the right to be forgotten with colleagues at the annual conference of the Organisation of News Ombudsmen in Cape Town, South Africa, April 19-22. It is one of the topics that public editors from Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa will discuss.
The right was adopted by the European Union in 2006. In the 28 countries of the EU, an individual has the right to have personal information, including videos or photographs, deleted from the internet so that it cannot be found by search engines. It has been described as “the right to silence on past events in life that are no longer occurring.”
The right is comparable to an older French law, le droit à l’oubli (the right of oblivion), which allows a convicted criminal who has served out their sentence to object to the publication of the facts of their conviction and imprisonment.
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“If I were the editor this is how I would do the news.”
Complaints often suggest, indirectly, how readers would do the news if they were the editor. Here are a few, edited for brevity.
Abdimajid Ali:
“Last week you published the list of names of those killed in Garissa. I was shocked beyond words that the first people (security guards) killed in the massacre were not named in the list. They were Kenyan Somali and Muslims. Are they not among the slain heroes? What are you suggesting to their families and friends? They died like cockroaches?”
Jane Koi:
“Stop the use of the cliché ‘given the nod’. It’s so overused, it’s tasteless. Another one is ‘oblivious of the danger they are exposing themselves to’, often used in captions of some of the pictures, especially of overloaded motor cycles. Stop giving big headlines — and this one is more serious — for scandals you’ve not fully investigated. Lang’ata Road Primary School land scandal, for example, why was it not fully investigated? So are our journalists that lazy that they cannot do serious investigations and give us the full story, or are some editors compromised or intimidated to kill some stories?”
Githaiga Kairu:
“Everything we write about government does not have to be negative. We can have positive news once in a while.”
Send your concerns or comments to [email protected]. You can also call or send text messages to mobile 0721989264, call 3288000 or visit the public editor at Nation Centre in Nairobi.
