The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) recently decided that the right to request the erasure of personal data on prior convictions may be trumped by the right of expression and information. The decision was made after two German nationals who were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993 requested that their names and identifying information be erased from articles published about them between 1992 and 2000 after being released on probation in 2007 and 2008, respectively. The ECHR decided that the general public not only has a right to be informed about current events, but also has the right to research past events.
