Removal, anonymisation or de-indexing request

What we do, and what we do not

We do not delete an article. We anonymise it. The distinction matters: deleting an article would strip the newspaper of the proof of what it published, when its defence in a dispute rests on the exact text and its date. Anonymisation removes from the page the elements that identify you, which answers your request without destroying the record.

An article is deleted only on a court order. A withdrawal leaves a reachable page, stripped of the disputed content, carrying the reason and the date, and not indexed. It never returns a 404 error.

The five possible requests

• Anonymisation: your name and identifying details are removed from the article and replaced by initials or a neutral description.
• De-indexing: the article no longer appears in search engine results for your name, and we actively ask the engines to remove it.
• Factual correction: information about you is inaccurate and must be corrected.
• Photograph removal: you are recognisable in an image published without your agreement.
• Objection: you object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to the continued processing of data concerning you.

Where your request goes

It is registered under a reference, timestamped, and examined within thirty days at most. That period may be extended once by two months if the request is complex; the extension is notified to you within the first month, with its written reasons. You receive a reasoned decision signed by the publication director, whatever the outcome.

How we decide

The right to be forgotten is not automatic: it is balanced against the public's right to be informed. We examine eight criteria, and our decision must address them:

1. how long ago the events took place;
2. their seriousness;
3. how well known the person is;
4. their role, public or private, in the events reported;
5. the judicial outcome: acquittal, dismissal, discontinuance, conviction, spent record;
6. their conduct since;
7. the current interest of the information for the people of the Aube;
8. the specific harm alleged and evidenced.

An acquittal, a dismissal or a discontinuance weigh heavily in favour of anonymisation. An elective mandate or a public office held at the time of the events weighs the other way. Elapsed time works in your favour.

What anonymisation actually changes

Where granted, it applies everywhere, or it is worthless: the body text, the headline and standfirst, the page address — the old one redirecting to the new —, the tags read by search engines, image descriptions, the site's own search index, and feeds already distributed. We then actively request removal of the old address from search engines.

The original version is kept offline, accessible to the publication director alone, and is never served on the web.

The limits of the journalistic exemption

Article 85 GDPR and article 80 of the French law of 6 January 1978 adjust certain rights of data subjects for processing carried out for journalistic purposes. That exemption may justify refusing to erase information contained in an article; it never justifies refusing to remove your address from the newsletter, your reader account or a message you sent us. For those requests, simply write to donnees@aubeactu.fr: they are met without any balancing exercise.

If we refuse

A refusal is written and reasoned. You may lodge a complaint with the French data protection authority, CNIL, 3 place de Fontenoy, TSA 80715, 75334 Paris Cedex 07, and bring proceedings before the competent court.

Proof of identity

A document evidencing your identity is required: without it we cannot verify that the request comes from the person concerned, and an anonymisation obtained by a third party would be one more harm. The document is stored outside the site's web root, encrypted, never reachable at a public address, and destroyed five years after the file is closed.