10.13135/2036-542X/7977
The goal of this article is to show how Ricoeur’s perspective on traces could be used in the current debate on digital traces and the “right to beforgotten” — the recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union according to which people have the right, under certain conditions, to ask search engines like Google to remove results for queries that include their name. In the first section, the author discusses Ricoeur’s unexpected “love for technology.” In particular, he shows how externalizations — i.e. methods, techniques and technologies—have been at the heart of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical reflections. In the second section, he takes into account Ricoeur’s considerations on traces and memory in Memory, History, Forgetting as potential replies to the several issues posed by digital traceability. The hypothesis is that Ricoeur’s perspective, and especially his motto “you are better than your actions,” could represent an ethical integration of both the juridical imposition of the European Court of Justice and the technical–moral solutions suggested by authors such as Luciano Floridi and Viktor Mayer–Schönberger.
application/pdf
2036-542X
7977
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Alberto Romele
Trópos
Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos
8
Monografica
2015-12-01
2023-07-30
2015-12-01
2023-07-30
105-118
1
Alberto Romele
2015/12/01
10.13135/2036-542X/7977
105
Universidade do Porto
2036-542X
2
118
Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten
https://ojs.unito.it/index.php/tropos/article/download/7977/6706
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                                                          trópos • anno VIII • numero 2 • 2015 – ISBN 978-88-548-9061-9
                                                          DOI 10.4399/97888548906197 – pag. 105-118 (dicembre 2015)




    Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten
                                                                      Ricoeurian Perspectives
                                                                                   A R*




    : The goal of this article is to show how Ricoeur’s perspective on traces
       could be used in the current debate on digital traces and the “right to be
       forgotten” — the recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union
       according to which people have the right, under certain conditions, to ask search
       engines like Google to remove results for queries that include their name. In the
       first section, the author discusses Ricoeur’s unexpected “love for technology.”
       In particular, he shows how externalizations — i.e. methods, techniques and
       technologies — have been at the heart of Ricoeur’s hermeneutical reflections.
       In the second section, he takes into account Ricoeur’s considerations on traces
       and memory in Memory, History, Forgetting as potential replies to the several
       issues posed by digital traceability. The hypothesis is that Ricoeur’s perspective,
       and especially his motto “you are better than your actions,” could represent an
       ethical integration of both the juridical imposition of the European Court of
       Justice and the technical–moral solutions suggested by authors such as Luciano
       Floridi and Viktor Mayer–Schönberger.

    : P. Ricoeur, philosophy of technology, digital studies, G. Simondon,
       post–phenomenology.




Introduction

Several academics have already dealt with the topic of Paul Ricoeur as a
philosopher of technology. According to Ernst Wolff, one can distinguish be-
tween three main research directions. The first one is that of David Kaplan
who investigated what Ricoeur effectively said about technology. He then
tried to develop a “Ricoeurian critical theory” and to think of the manner in
which the Ricoeurian philosophy and philosophy of technology could con-
    ∗
       Alberto Romele, Universidade do Porto (romelealberto@gmail.com).
    . E. W, Compétences et moyens de l’homme capable à la lumière de l’incapacité, “Etudes Ri-
coeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies,”  (), n. , pp. –.


                                                                                                                 
      Alberto Romele


tribute to each other. The second one is that of David Lewin who tried to
show how Ricoeur’s thoughts could be relevant in a debate à la Heidegger
on Being and Technology. The third one is the work of Wolff himself who
has been using Ricoeur’s hermeneutics and philosophical anthropology
for some years in order to develop an interdisciplinary approach on the
technical dimension of human action. In addition to these approaches, my
personal contribution consists of using the Ricoeurian hermeneutics in the
specific context of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies)
for the past two or three years.
    This article belongs precisely to this line of research. In particular, its
goal is to show how Ricoeur’s perspective on traces could be used in the
current debate on digital traces and the “right to be forgotten” — the recent
ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union according to which
people have the right, under certain conditions, to ask search engines like
Google to remove results for queries that include their name.
    The discussion will be developed in two steps. In the first section, I am
going to discuss Ricoeur’s unexpected “love for technology.” In particular, I
will show how externalizations — i.e. methods, techniques and technologies
— have been at the heart of his hermeneutical reflections. In the second
section, I will take into account his considerations on traces and memory in
Memory, History, Forgetting as potential replies to the several issues posed by
digital traceability.
    My hypothesis is that Ricoeur’s perspective, and especially his motto
“you are better than your actions,” could represent an ethical integration
of both the juridical imposition of the European Court of Justice and the
technical–moral — the relation between morality and technology will be
explained — solutions suggested by authors such as Luciano Floridi and
Viktor Mayer–Schönberger.




     . D. K, Ricoeur’s Critical Theory, New York, SUNY Press, , pp. –; Paul Ricoeur
and the Philosophy of Technology, “Journal of French Philosophy”,  (), n. /, pp. –.
     . D. L, Ricoeur and the capability of modern technology, in T. S. M and D. L (eds.), From
Ricoeur to Action. The Sociopolitical Significance of Ricoeur’s Thinking, London–New York, Continuum,
pp. –.
     . Cf. also E. W, Ricoeur et Giddens: l’herméneutique de l’homme capable et la théorie de la
structuration, “Etudes Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur Studies”, vol.  (), n. , pp. –.
     . A. R, Narrative Identity and Social Networking Sites, “Etudes Ricoeuriennes/Ricoeur
Studies”,  (), n. , pp. –; Herméneutique du digital: les limites techniques de l’interprétation,
“Etudes Digitales”,  (), n.  (forthcoming).
     . P. R, Memory, History, Forgetting, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, , p.
.
                                       Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten     


. Paul Ricoeur or the love of technology

I was rather surprised when I first read this statement in a still little known
text by Ricoeur entitled Sens et fonction d’une communauté ecclesiale (Meaning
and Function of a Church Community):

    I am very attached to the work of a young philosopher, named Simondon, who
    wrote a very interesting book on “the technical object.” He shows that, too often,
    we regard the technical object as an enemy, simply because we ignore it. But if
    we had a better knowledge of how machines work, we would realize that it is a
    materialized humanity, a crystalized humanity into things. The modern matter is
    much more spiritual than the ancient matter. We master unleashed forces, like the
    steam, less than information’s schemes, which are our intellect (raison) into the
    things; [. . . ] we tame signs, systems of signs, much more than nonhuman energies.
    [. . . ] The modern citizens will have to be more competent!

    This passage is remarkable for two reasons. First, because it is one of
the rare occasions — to my knowledge the only one — when Ricoeur
explicitly refers to Simondon and the book resulting from his minor thesis
Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (On the Mode of Existence of Techni-
cal Objects). Incidentally, that book is not part of Ricoeur’s private library,
housed at the Fonds Ricoeur in Paris, yet the two authors met at least twice.
The first meeting took place when Simondon defended his major thesis
L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et information (Individuation in
the light of the notions of Form and Information) in . Ricoeur was one of
the members of the jury. The second one occurred on February , ,
when Simondon presented his works at the Société française de philosophie
before a prestigious audience, and Ricoeur was part of it. On that occasion,
Ricoeur criticized Simondon for having attempted an axiomatization of
human sciences from a domain that does not belong to them: “Can we
attempt an axiomatization of humanities from a field that does not belong
to humanities? More precisely, what seems to me prior to human sciences is
not nature, but the totality of Humaness + Nature; can we, from a structure
of thought borrowed from nature, axiomatize the totality of Humaness
+ Nature? I think that we are necessarily doomed to something like a fal-
lacy whenever we try to explain the totality of the laws through one of its

     . The text (II.A. according to the Vansina’s bibliography) was published in  in the
“Cahiers d’études du Centre protestant de recherches et de rencontres du Nord”.
     . P. R, Sens et fonction d’une communauté ecclesiale, cit., p.  (my translation).
     . G. S, Forme, Information, Potentiels. Intervenants: MM. Berger, Bouligand, Dugué,
Hyppolite, Marcel, Ricoeur, Schuhl, Wahl, Weiberg, “Centenaire de la société française de philoso-
phie. Les grandes conférences du XXe siècle: texts téléchargeables en intégralité”, pp. –,
http://www.sofrphilo.fr/?idPage= (accessed July , ).
     Alberto Romele


parts.” Reproached for the “metaphorical character” of his transpositions
from nature to human signification, Simondon claimed that in his reflection
it is not a matter of metaphors or translations, but rather of “transduction.”
For him, “the transductive process of thinking consists of establishing iden-
tities among relations. Such a process, however, cannot be assimilated into
a simple translation. Indeed, it is not based on identity, but rather on the
differences that it aims to explain.” With this notion, whose value is both
epistemological and ontological, he wanted to formulate a “relational ontol-
ogy,” which, however, is capable of maintaining the distinctions between the
different modes of existence, in particular between nature — animals, plants
and minerals —, human beings and technologies. With regard to the
relation between human beings and technical objects, he argues in Du mode
d’existence that “the first condition for incorporating technical objects into
culture would be to acknowledge that human beings are neither inferior nor
superior to technical objects. It would consist in approaching them, getting
to know them, having an equal relationship and a reciprocity of exchanges
with them: a kind of asocial relationship.” Because of his predilections for
symbols and signs, Ricoeur has obviously the tendency to humanize both
nature and technologies. For Simondon, by contrast, signification cannot
be reduced to human discourse. For this reason, he replies to Ricoeur that
“there is here [in your critique] a theory of the word that overlooks what can
be admitted; it means to attribute all the value to the word. In what I have
tried to present, there is a theory of nature that cannot admit such a theory
of signification as if it were included entirely in the word.” Similarly, when
Ricoeur presents Simondon’s modern machines as being “materialized”
and “crystalized” humanity, he is clearly misunderstanding Simondon’s
intentions. Yet despite this “idealism of the matter,” the fact remains that
Ricoeur defends the necessity for human beings “to find a certain fraternity
with technological machines.” In the text entitled Prévision économique et
choix éthique (Economic prevision and ethical choice) and published in ,
he had already stressed that technicization does not cause alienation, but

    . Ivi, p.  (my translation).
    . G. S, L’individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information, Grenoble, Millon,
, p.  (my translation).
    . On the notion of transduction in Simondon and the difference between Simondon’s and
Bruno Latour’s relationism, cf. R.  A and A. R, Pensare le reti sociali online con Gilbert
Simondon, in A. G and C. S (eds.), Prospettive sul luogo. Discussione di un oggetto sociale,
Roma, Aracne, , pp. –.
    . G. S, Du mode d’existence des objets techniques, Paris, Aubier, , pp. – (my
translation).
    . G. S, Forme, Information, Potentiels, cit., p.  (my translation).
    . B. L, Prendre le plis des techniques, “Réseaux”,  (), n. , p. .
    . P. R, Sens et fonction d’une communauté ecclesiale, cit., p.  (my translation).
                                      Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten   


rather increases prevision, and then choice and responsibility: “One might
think that prospective, prevision and planning denote progress in the mech-
anization of existence. On the contrary [. . . ], it must be understood that
the more we multiply the zones of intervention, the more we multiply the
zones of responsibility, stolen from chance and disorder, the wider are the
range of alternatives.” In his Moralizing Technology, the Dutch philosopher
Peter–Paul Verbeek has similarly argued that “when technology is used, it
organizes a situation of choice.” According to him, while fulfilling their
function, technologies do much more. They give shape to what we do and
they contribute actively to the ways we live our lives: “By making it possible
to detect specific diseases, medical diagnostic devices do not simply produce
images of the body but also generate complicated responsibilities, especially
in the case of antenatal diagnostics and in situations of unbearable and
endless suffering.” In the next section, I will show how some academics
suggested the implementation of new technical features in digital devices as
a moral solution for the issue of online traceability.
    The context is the second reason why the passage quoted at the be-
ginning of this section is interesting. Ricoeur is talking about the role of
the Protestant church communities in the modern societies before a non–
academic audience. In a long part of Sens et fonction, Ricoeur discusses the
importance of Rudolph Bultmann’s “demythologization” for an internal
critique that would permit the Protestant church communities to have
a role in contemporary technicized societies. Such a role would consist
of bringing “hope for a meaning, to witness this meaning by reflecting
on the methods and the goals of our society [. . . ].” When I titled this
section “Paul Ricoeur or the love of technology,” I was clearly thinking
of Bruno Latour’s book Aramis ou l’amour des techniques (Aramis or the love
of technology). In this book, Latour investigated the reasons for the failure
of the project Aramis, a revolutionary transport system that the company
Matra, supported by RATP (the Parisian transport company), conceived in
the s. The book is both a popularization of STS (science and technology
studies) and a strong critique of the thesis on the autonomy of technology,
put forward, for instance, by Jacques Ellul: “I have sought to offer humanists
a detailed analysis of a technology sufficiently magnificent and spiritual
to convince them that the machines by which they are surrounded are
cultural objects worthy of their attention and respect. [. . . ] I have sought

   . Ivi, pp. – (my translation).
   . P.P. V, Moralizing Technology: Understanding and Designing the Morality of Things,
Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, , p. .
   . Ivi, p. .
  . P. R, Sens et fonction d’une communauté ecclesiale, cit., p.  (my translation).
       Alberto Romele


to show technicians that they cannot even conceive of a technological ob-
ject without taking into account the mass of human beings with all their
passions and politics.” Rather than approaching human beings and tech-
nologies as belonging to two separate domains, Latour suggests to keep
the interwoven character of the two spheres at the center. Humans and
nonhumans are conceived according to the “principle of symmetry,” which
confers upon them the same dignity. Reflecting on the possible sources of
Latour’s approach toward techniques, I remembered a rather long passage
of an interview that he released when his latest book was published, Enquête
sur les modes d’existence (An Inquiry into Modes of Existence):

      From  to , when I was a militant Catholic student at the University of Dijon,
      I had the good fortune to have as a philosophy professor André Malet, a Protestant
      minister and Rudolf Bultmann’s French translator. In his hands, which were as
      lustrous as parchment, the Biblical text finally became comprehensible, revealed as a
      lengthy process of transformations, inventions, glosses, and diverse rationalizations
      which, taken together, sketched out a layer of interpretations that played out — this
      is the essential point — each in its own way the question of fidelity or treason:
      faithful or falsified invention, impious reworking or astounding rediscovery? We
      spent hours outside of class comparing the various resurrection narratives; for
      example, should they be read as informative stories — the tomb really is empty
      — or as transformational stories — the angel with a raised finger makes it clear
      how the Scriptures are to be read, how what they say manages to resuscitate the
      person to whom they are addressed? Because they escaped from an inexplicable form of
      transcendence and immobility, because they became localized, historical, situated, artificial,
      yes, invented and constantly reinvented, by raising the question of their own veracity anew
      at every turn, these texts finally became active and accessible. [. . . ] Strangely, to my
      eyes, the systematic destruction by exegesis of all dogmatic certitudes, far from
      weakening the truth value that the successive glosses played out over and over,
      made it possible at last to raise the question of religious truth.

   For Latour and Ricoeur, Bultmann’s approach opens up a more authentic
understanding of the Biblical texts. Demythologization is a technique for inter-
preting the New Testament that enables people today to grasp the message of
the myths without abandoning their scientific knowledge. In fact, “we cannot
use electric lights and radios and, in the events of illness, avail ourselves of
modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit
and wonder world of the New Testament.” Would it be too rash to see a
continuity between demythologization and the love for technology? Doesn’t
demythologization mean acknowledging the theoretical (and moral) relevance

    . B. L, Aramis or the Love of Technology, Cambidge, Harvard University Press, p. VIII.
   . B. L, Biography of an Inquiry: On a Book about Modes of Existence, “Social Studies of
Science”,  (), n. , pp. – (my emphasis).
    . R. B, New Testament and Mythology: The problem of Demythologizing the New Testament
Proclamation, in New Testament and Mythology and other Basic Writings, Philadelphia, Fortress, , p. .
                                          Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten          


of science and technology for the contemporary societies? At the same time,
isn’t demythologization, the effort of tidying up two opposite attitudes toward
the same object, an esprit de finesse and an esprit de géometrie? If it were so, it
could not be a coincidence that Jacques Ellul considered Karl Barth the most
important theologian of his century.
    Last but not least, isn’t all this closely related to Paul Ricoeur’s famous
motto “explain more is to understand better,” which in turn is a mise en
abyme of his entire hermeneutical challenge of bringing together truth
and method? Ricoeur is the philosopher who abandoned symbols in fa-
vor of signs, because of their higher controllability — especially after the
development of the structural linguistics’ techniques. Moreover, among
the representatives of ontological hermeneutics, he is the one who most
externalized the language and its effectiveness. Let us consider, for example,
the role of narrative for the reconfiguration of the self. Of course, Ricoeur re-
mains an “idealist of the matter,” insofar he never questioned the materiality
and the technicity of texts and traces. However, it is fair to say that he paved
the way for a hermeneutical understanding of science and technology. In
the next section, I will consider how Ricoeur’s hermeneutics might possibly
contribute to the specific issue of digital traceability and the right to be
forgotten.


. Digital traceability and the right to be forgotten

It is often said that we live in an information and communication society. Yet
what characterizes contemporary societies is not information and commu-
nication per se, but rather the fact that all information and communication
leave a digital trace of its passage. Digital technologies — e.g. Internet, Web
., mobile access to the Internet, Internet of things and wearable devices
— are making digital traceability a “total social fact.” There are at least two
kinds of issues related to this phenomenon. First, digital traces can be easily

    . The relation between Ricoeur, Barth, Bultmann and the theology of the Word is rather complex.
For instance, in his Preface to Bultmann — available today in The conflict of Interpretations — he praises
demythologization and defends it from possible misunderstanding. Yet he also accuses Bultmann of
having remained within the limits of anthropological philosophy. In this way, he assumes, at least
implicitly, a Barthian perspective. It is noteworthy that Ricoeur’s criticism of Bultmann’s existentialism
is mitigated in an article he wrote in , which is devoted to the work of Latour’s first master. Cf. P.
R, Hommage à André Malet, interprète de Bultmann, in M.–F. C, C. P and M. V (éds.),
André Malet ou un homme en quête de Dieu. Hommage de l’université de Bourgogne, Editions Universitaires,
Dijon, , pp. –. On Ricoeur and the theology of the Word, cf. A. R, La parole efficace chez
Gerhard Ebeling et Paul Ricoeur, “Revue de théologie et de philosophie”,  (), pp. –.
    . Cf. D. I, Expanding Hermeneutics: Visualism in Science, Evanston, Northwestern University
Press, .
      Alberto Romele


collected and analyzed both for commercial and for scientific purposes.
“Critical data studies” is an emerging research field focusing on the ontologi-
cal, epistemological, anthropological, political and ethical challenges posed
by (big) data analytics. Second, there is daily access via search engines to
the part of these traces that is available on the Internet, the consequences of
which are not less problematic. This is precisely the topic of this section.
    According to Danah Boyd, four affordances — i.e. specific properties
that make possible certain types of practices — characterize social media:
persistence — the durability of online expressions and contents; visibility —
the potential audience who can bear witness; spreadability — the ease with
which content can be shared; searchability — the ability to find content.
These affordances can be extended to the entire Web .. Taken together,
they make the Internet a sort of flatland, lacking depth both in time and
in space. According to Floridi, on the Internet information is “dynamically
structured ‘on the fly’ by our researches.” The “right to be forgotten”
ruling has been introduced by European Commission with the intention to
offer its citizen a juridical resource in case some digital traces are considered
by someone detrimental for his or her own privacy.
    In , a Spanish citizen complained to the National Data Protection
Agency about the presence of an auction notice of his repossessed home in
Google’s search results. According to him, this infringed his privacy because
all the proceedings concerning him had been fully resolved many years
ago. The citizen requested that Google Spain and Google Inc. be required
to remove the personal data relating to him, so that it no longer appeared
in the search results. The Spanish court referred the case to the Court of

     . On the difference between digital traces and data, as well as the distinction between different
forms of data, cf. M. S and A. R, Soft Data. Essai d’une nouvelle définition des données pour
les études territoriales, in M. S and A. R (eds.), Traces numériques et territoires, Paris, Presses
des Mines, , pp. –.
     . D. B, It’s Complicated. The Social Lives of Networked Teens, New Haven–London, Yale
University Press, , p. .
     . L. F, Right to be forgotten poses more questions than answers, “The Guardian”, November
, . As pointed out by Bruno Bachimont, digital technologies do not exclude per se a dynamic
conception of memory. Since they involve a potential gap of intelligibility and obsolescence, digital
contents need constantly to be reactualized and hermeneutically interpreted. Cf. B. B, La
présence de l’archive: réinventer et justifier, “Intellectica”,  (), n. , pp. –. On the importance
of editorialization for digital and digitalized contents, cf. M. T, Mémoires audiovisuelles: les
archives en ligne ont–elles un sens?, Montréal, Les Presses Universitaires de Montréal, .
     . If the trace is considered in his Derridean version of “absence of presence,” then one might
say that on the Internet, where everything tends to be present in time and space, there is no trace at
all. One might also say that the role of a hermeneutical understanding of digital technologies consists
precisely into giving back to digital traces the depth that is proper to all traces. Cf. C. C, Et s’il
n’y avait pas de traces numériques?, presentation at the conference “E–réputation et traces numériques:
dimensions instrumentales et enjeux de société,” in Toulouse, www.academia.edu//Et_sil_
ny_avait_pas_de_traces_num%C%Ariques_ (accessed September , ).
                                            Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten          


Justice of the European Union. In its ruling of May , , the EU Court
of Justice declared that () search engines are controllers of personal data.
Google cannot therefore escape the EU data protection law; () even if the
server of a company is located outside Europe, EU rules apply to it if it
has a branch or a subsidiary in a Member State; () individuals have the
right — under certain conditions — to ask search engines to remove links
with personal information about them. Google had to make an online
complain form available for its European customers, specifying, however,
that “when you make such a request, we will balance the privacy rights of
the individual with the public’s interest to know and the right to distribute
information. When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the
results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s
a public interest in the information.” Since the company first started to
process requests in May , it has received more than , requests.
Less than % concern criminal, politicians and high–profile public figures,
while % percent comes from everyday members of the public. Google
also set up an advisory council, which held consultations in several Euro-
pean cities in order to “gather input from Europeans.” In January , the
advisory council published its findings and recommendations in a report,


    . Generally, the ruling applies when the information is inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or
excessive for the purposes of the data processing. Cf. the European Commission’s Factsheet on the
“Right to be forgotten” ruling, ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets/factsheet_data_
protection_en.pdf (accessed September , ).
    . Jurists have been discussing the eventuality of a “right to be forgotten” ruling in Europe
and its consequences for many years. In particular, US scholars have seen a possible conflict with
other fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression and the freedom of the media. Law
professor Jeffrey Rosen, for instance, argued that EU and US have opposite approaches to the issue. In
Europe, the right to be forgotten finds its intellectual roots in the French droit à l’oubli, which allows a
convicted criminal, who has served his time, to object to the publication of the facts of his conviction.
In the United States, by contrast, publication of someone’s criminal history is protected by the First
Amendment, which concerns among other things the freedom of speech and of the press. According
to him — the article was published in  — after the European ruling “it’s hard to imagine that the
Internet results will be as free and open as it is now.” For Steven C. Bennet, despite cultural divisions
between the EU and the US on the substance of privacy rights and the reach of jurisdiction over the
Internet, a process of convergence seems inevitable. Firstly, because outside the context of newswor-
thy stories, US courts have been generally less inclined to insist on unrestrained access to information.
Secondly, because recent EU pronouncements expressly recognize the need to balance right of
privacy with freedom of expression. For the European Commission, the right to be forgotten is not a
“super–right” and the request for erasure has to be assessed on a case–by–case basis. Cf. J. R, The
Right to be forgotten, “Stanford Law Review”, http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/privacy–
paradox/right–to–be–forgotten (accessed September , ); S.C. B, The ‘Right to be forgotten:’
reconciling EU and US perspectives, “Berkeley Journal of International Law”, , , pp. –.
    . Cf. support.google.com/legal/contact/lr_eudpa?product=websearch&hl=en (accessed on
September , ).
    . S. T and J. P, Google accidentally reveals data on ‘right to be forgotten’ requests, “The
Guardian”, July , .
     Alberto Romele


which is available online. It is noteworthy that the report refers to the right
to be forgetting as “delisting.” In fact, the European ruling does not concern
the source site and hence it does not really has the effect of “forgetting”
information about data subjects: “Once delisted, the information is still avail-
able at the source site, but its accessibility to the general public is reduced
because search queries will not return a link to the source publication.”
There are many issues related to the EU ruling. As Floridi, who was among
the members of the advisory council, pointed out, “some expected a grand
finale, a denouement in which the problems raised by the ruling would be
resolved. Instead, a sense of déjà vu soon dawned on the final meeting in
Bruxelles. [. . . ] Perhaps it was a missed opportunity to run some intellectual
risks and think outside the proverbial boxes.” According to me, the most
evident limit of the ruling is its contingent character. First, because it does
not prevent, but rather intervenes afterwards, when privacy is felt as having
been already infringed. Second, its application depends upon the individual
sensitivity to digital traceability’s pervasiveness.
    Some academics thought of another kind of solution that might be called
technical–moral. Floridi, for instance, suggested the technical implementa-
tion of a right to comment: “There are many alternative technical possibili-
ties to de–indexing, including reordering information results, de–identifying
information, and appending additional qualifying information [. . . ]. Instead

    . Cf. drive.google.com/file/d/BUgZshetMdcEISjlvVhNbDA/view (accessed September
, ).
    . Ivi, p. . In the central part of the report, the authors highlight the main criteria for assessing
delisting requests such as the types of information, their source and time — “the Ruling refers to the
notion that information may at one point be relevant but, as circumstances change, the relevance
of that information may fade.” (Ivi, p. ) In the final part, the report refers to procedural elements
that are not explicitly addressed by the ruling, but on which the authors chose to give their advice:
the need to make the removal request form easily accessible; the need of notifying webmasters of
a delisting; the possibility for data subjects of challenging the delisting decision; the appropriate
geographic scope of the delisting — the links are removed just from the European–directed services
of Google such as google.fr and google.it; the issue of transparency toward the public and the data
subject.
    . L. F, Right to be forgotten poses more questions than answers, cit. For him, the most
significant questions that were raised during the consultations concern: the sedimentation of personal
information online; a new, two–tier approach to information; the territoriality of the law versus the
non–territoriality of the Internet; a conflict by proxy — the right to be forgotten and the right to
information; information cartography — indexing by search engine is today more important than
the corresponding information; public interest versus what is interesting to the public; the relevance
of relevance — it is impossible to identify the relevance of some information without referring
to the context; the all–encompassing nature of data processing — there is currently no distinction
between recording, copying, formatting, linking and manipulating data; algorithms versus humans;
information powers. Cf. also L. F, “The Right to be Forgotten”: a Philosophical View, “Annual
Review of Law and Ethics”, forthcoming. A pre–print version of the article is available at www.
academia.edu//_The_Right_to_Be_Forgotten_a_Philosophical_View_-_forthcoming_in_
Annual_Review_of_Law_and_Ethics (accessed October , ).
                                         Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten       


of an all–or–nothing approach, internet services could be encouraged to
consider a generally–available right to comment — for example, by linking
metadata to alternative URLs that clarify, update, or contextualize.” For
Viktor Mayer–Schönberger, an expiration date for the information would
be the most suitable solution. Our digital devices would be made to auto-
matically delete information that has reached its expiry date. When saving a
document, users would have to select an expiration date in addition to the
document’s name. According to him, “the need to enter an expiration date
should prompt users to reflect, at least for a moment, about the lifespan of
the information they intend to store.” The author is not directly concerned
with the right to be forgotten but, more generally, with information persis-
tency in the digital age. However, his idea could be extended to uploading
and availability of contents online. I call this solution “technical–moral”
because it suggests the implementation of technical features in order to
introduce a situation of choice. As Verbeek said, when technologies are used,
moral decisions are not taken autonomously by humans. Rather, moral
agency is distributed among humans and nonhumans: “Ultrasound imaging
organizes a specific form of contact between expectant parents and unborn
child, in which the parents and the child are constituted in specific ways
with specific moral roles.” The introduction of an expiration date for the
information would fully recognize such a morality to digital traces, which
organize a specific form of contact between search engines’ users and data
subjects. Yet this approach has two limits. First, it could positively affect
the way one treats his or her personal data, but it is uncertain what kind of
effect it would have on the information he or she makes available online
about others. Indifference is a possibility, but it could also happen that a
person decides for some reasons to unduly delay the expiration date of an
information concerning someone else. Second, the possibility to choose an
expiration date for information, as Mayer–Schönberger presents it, remains,
so to speak, externally induced. Referring to the work of Foucault, Verbeek
distinguishes between morality as the behavior corresponding to a specific
moral code, and ethics as the way in which human beings constitutes them-
selves as subjects: “Ethics is not only a matter of a person who is the ‘subject’
of his or her actions [. . . ] but of a person who also ‘subjects’ himself or


   . J. P and L. F, A manifesto for the future of the ‘right to be forgotten’
debate, “The Guardian”, July , , www. theguardian. com / technology /  / jul /  /
a-manifesto-for-the-future-of-the-right-to-be-forgotten-debate (accessed on September , ).
   . V. M–S, Delete: the Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, Princeton, Princeton
University Press, , p. .
   . Ivi, p. .
   . P.P. V, Moralizing Technology, cit., p. .
     Alberto Romele


herself to [. . . ] a vision of what constitutes a good life or a good behavior.”
This means that we cannot confine ourselves to disciplining humans by
implementing new technical features. However useful it might be in the
short term, one must also consider the long–term necessity to “subject”
users to a vision of what is a good use of digital traces. Mayer–Schönberger
refers to it as “cognitive adjustment.” Yet cognitive adjustment would fail
for him to address a fundamental downside of digital memory: incom-
pleteness. In other words, people might become comfortable in dealing
with digital traces, but they would also become increasingly incapable to
see their limits — fortunately, not everything we communicate, think and
do is captured in digital format. But it is precisely with the intention of
putting a spotlight on the incompleteness of the digital traces that I am
going to discuss Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of the traces — “hermeneutics of
the historical condition,” as he calls it — in the rest of this section and in
the brief conclusion.
    First of all, it is important to say what, according to me, is a hermeneuti-
cal approach to technology. On one hand, it means to recognize the rele-
vance that technological mediations have on the relation between human
beings and the world. On the other hand, it also means to recognize the
limits of technological mediation as such. For Don Ihde, all technologies
have a “magnification/reduction structure,” i.e. they amplify some aspects
of reality but neglect some others. This is also the case of the technologies
related to digital traceability. As I said, among the representatives of ontolog-
ical hermeneutics, Ricoeur is the one who most valued the externalizations
of language. Symbols, signs, metaphors and narrations are necessary medi-
ations for the human understanding of the world, the others and oneself.
It is precisely this predilection for externalizations that makes Ricoeur’s
hermeneutics interesting for the philosophy of technology. There is no
room here for such a reflection, but his perspective should be confronted
with popular notions from the philosophy of technology such as Bernard
Stiegler’s “tertiary retention” and Clark and Chalmers’ “extended mind.”
The central part of Memory, History, Forgetting is devoted to the articula-
tion — the hermeneutical circularity — between the phenomenology of
memory and the epistemology of history. On one hand, Ricoeur stresses
the importance of historiography for fixing, accessing and processing living

   . Ivi, p. .
   . V. M–S, Delete, cit., .
   . On the application of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics of traces to digital traceability, cf. A. S-
, Quelle(s) problématique(s) de la trace?, presentation at the seminar of CERCOR (now CERSIC),
December , , hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/sic_/document (accessed September , ).
   . Cf. D. I, Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth, Bloomington–Indianapolis,
Indiana University Press, , pp. –.
                                         Digital Traceability and the Right to be Forgotten       


memory. On the other hand, he highlights its reductionist character. He
refers in particular to Plato’s myth of Theuth, god of writing and Derrida’s
critical interpretation of it: “That this extension of the myth of the origin
of writing may sound as a myth on the origin of history, thanks to rewrit-
ing, is, if I may put in this way, authorized by the myth itself, inasmuch
what is at stake is the fate of memory. [. . . ] It is to true memory, genuine
memory, that the invention of writing and its related drugs is opposed as a
threat.” History, writing, traces and, more generally, all kinds of inscrip-
tion are pharmakon, i.e. remedy and poison, for the living experience of
memory. For Ricoeur, the moment of the archive determines the passage
of memory from its oral to its written form: “The moment of the archive
is the moment of the entry into writing of the historiographical operation.
Testimony is by origin oral. It is listened to, heard. The archive is written.
It is read, consulted.” Moreover, he defines the archive as “the physical
place that shelters the destiny of that kind of trace that I have so carefully
distinguished from the cerebral trace and the affective trace, namely, the
documentary trace.” It seems possible to me to transpose Ricoeur’s phar-
macological attitude toward history, writing and traces to digital traceability,
all the more so because the Internet is understandable as — although not
reducible to — a dynamic archive, i.e. a database where information can
be added, browsed and, with much more difficulty, changed and destroyed.
Digital traces are pharmakon, since they are both important resources to
access information and, because of their intrinsic incompleteness, limits for
a genuine understanding of the world, the others and oneself.


Conclusion

In Memory, History, Forgetting, Ricoeur articulates forgetting and forgiveness;
despite a certain reticence, he also sketches the outlines of an ars oblivionis,
“a path of a forgetting that would no longer be a strategy, nor a work, an idle
forgetting. [. . . ] If memory–as–care we hold ourselves open to the past, we
remain concerned about it. Would there not then be a supreme form of for-
getting, as a disposition of being in the world, which would be insouciance,
carefreeness?” In our context, insouciance would be a specific disposition
of being in the digital world: despite their “being–ready–to–hand,” digital
traces might not always be the most authentic way to access the world,
   . P. R, Memory, History, Forgetting, cit., p. .
  . Ivi, p. .
   . Ivi, p. . On archives, documents and traces Cf. also P. R, Time and Narrative, vol. ,
Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, , pp. –.
  . Ivi, p. –.
     Alberto Romele


the others and oneself. This does not mean abstinence, but rather moder-
ation. Verbeek insists on the fact that ethics should not aim at protecting
“humanity” from “technology” but should consist in carefully assessing
and dealing with technological mediations. According to him, ethics is
“about excellence in living, or mastering the art of living. In a technological
culture, an ethics of the good life is about developing forms of excellence
in living with technology.” When moderation — which might be seen as
a hermeneutical process of distantiation and appropriation — is not con-
templable, another principle intervenes. Ricoeur argues: “Under the sign
of forgiveness, the guilty person is to be considered capable of something
other than his offenses and his faults.” He also suggests expanding this
principle to all relations between a person and his or her own actions. In
this sense, “the formula for this liberating word, reduced to the bareness of
its utterance, would be: you are better than your actions.” “You are better
than the digital traces your actions left behind you” is the principle of char-
ity that should guide our attitude toward traceability in the digital age. As
principle of charity, it goes further than the golden rule according to which
“one should treat others’ digital traces as one would like others to treat one’s
own digital traces.” In conclusion, the question arises whether the limit
of Ricoeur’s ethical perspective consists of remaining “externalist” with
respect to the digital technologies of traceability. Yes and no. Yes, insofar it
does not permit to sketch the outlines of an ethics of design. By contrast,
this is among the main tasks of Verbeek’s approach. No, because Ricoeur’s
reflection on traces, and, more generally, his hermeneutical approach has
the merit to encourage reflection on the excellence of living in relation with,
and not outside of externalizations, i.e. methods, techniques and, potentially,
technologies.




   . P.P. V, Moralizing Technology, cit., p. .
    . Ivi, p. .
    . P. R, Memory, History, Forgetting, cit., p. .
    . Ibid.
    . With such a term, Verbeek indicates the possibility to build objects that entail specific ethical
values and orient users’ actions. According to him, “designers engage in ‘ethics with other means;’
that is, their products codetermine the outcome of moral considerations, which in turn determine
human action and their definition of ‘the good life.’” (P.P. V, What Things Do. Philosophical
Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design, University Park Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania University
Press, , p. ).
    . Cf. P.P. V, Moralizing Technology, cit., pp. –.
