The right to be forgotten, enshrined in Article 17 of the GDPR, grants data subjects the right to request the erasure of their personal data under specific conditions. These include situations where the data is no longer necessary for its original purpose, where consent has been withdrawn, or where the data has been unlawfully processed. Controllers must act without undue delay and, where data has been made public, take reasonable steps to inform other controllers of the erasure request.
Implementing this right effectively requires organisations to maintain comprehensive data inventories and have robust deletion processes in place across all systems, including backups and third-party processors. Failure to honour erasure requests within the legally mandated timeframe can result in significant fines and reputational harm.