The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 provides people with criminal records protection from discrimination once their criminal record becomes ‘spent’. In this article, I highlight how media reports are increasingly available online and often mean spent convictions continue to be accessible to employers and others. However, I also look at a landmark case in 2014 that established a ‘right to be forgotten’, which enables people to ask for search results to be delisted from internet search engines. I examine to what extent this helps people with convictions.
CIPD (2010) Labour Market Outlook Summer 2010. London; CIPD.
2.
CJEU (2014) Google Spain v AEPD and Mario Costeja González, C-131/12.
3.
European Commission (2014) Guidelines on the implementation of the Court of Justice of the European Union judgment on ‘Google Spain and inc v. Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González’, c-131/12
