Right to be forgotten: Is it practical?

The reform of the EU’s data protection framework has an explicit requirement that obliges online social networking services (and all other data controllers) to minimise the volume of users’ personal data that they collect and process.  Furthermore, data controllers must delete an individual’s personal data on request – assuming there is no other legitimate reason to retain it.

One wonders if this also applies to back-up and archive files.  The best organisations may be able to trawl through history, selectively remove personal records and produce an audit trail to prove it.  It may start messing up statistical reports – but that a minor problem when most public sector organisations do not have information governance processes capable of tracing individuals – let alone removing all traces of them.