Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have two queries on section 7 that I want to raise. First, on the individual complaints mechanism, I have read through the amendments and it seems very vague on the powers of the media commission to force the big tech companies to deal with an actual complaint. I refer to amendment No. 118 which refers to the new section 139T(1)(a). It mentions "referring the complaint to the provider concerned with such advice, guidance or support as the Commission considers appropriate". In terms of a complaint, going to the big tech companies in relation to the provision of advice or guidance is far too weak. All of us here and many of our constituents have had personal experience of dealing with the tech companies. Any individual who is unfortunate enough to have had a run-in with a tech company knows they are not that interested in what a complainant has to say.

I ask the Minister to make a clarification on the powers that the media commission has to force the tech companies to act on a complaint when a genuine complaint is being made.

The second issue I want to raise also concerns the powers of the commission. It relates to the right to be forgotten. In the Minister's contribution on section 7, she made the point that one of the first aspects of the media fund that is going to be looked at is the issue of court reporting. One of the key purposes of court reporting is to report in public what has gone on in court. Court hearings are supposed to be held in public and the reports are supposed to be published for that reason. There have been a number of instances where Google has used the right to be forgotten to actually expunge the public record in relation to convicted sex offenders. I believe that for the sake of victims who have lived with the consequences of these perpetrators, and that of any potential future victims, those convicted of sexual offences should lose the right to be forgotten on a permanent basis. Google should not facilitate the deletion of these records. The law on GDPR clearly states that companies like Google have a legitimate reason for rejecting requests for the erasure of such records when it is in the public interest. I believe that above all areas where it is in the public interest, records of conviction for sexual offences should remain available to search via Google or any other search engine. Those records should never be delisted. Yet, the big tech companies are doing this. I believe that the commission has a role to play here in ensuring that companies such as Google protect the court records, ensure that they are searchable and accessible, and that where victims waive the right of anonymity, the very last thing that should happen is that a tech company down the road decides that it is going to delist that particular record. That is a further abuse of the victims involved. I ask the Minister to look at the issue in advance on Report Stage of this Bill.