BBC Click’s David Reid wrote about France’s decision to start considering a ‘right to forget’ law on Friday, which in theory would allow individuals to ask for an embarrassing photo or article to be removed once a certain period of time had passed.

There seems to be some confusion over what this would specifically entail, as Reid mentions that the law would force online and mobile firms to dispose of e-mails and text messages after an agreed length of time or on the request of the individual concerned. This would suggest that only private conversations would be covered, but then the piece goes on to talk about publicly available information also being included.

There’s an awful lot that could be said in response to one of the opinions within the piece (that of Prof Frau-Meigs), who says that “the manipulation of someone’s online presence only benefits the wealthy and people with a vested interest in disguising their real persona.” Concerning as this may be from a reported expert in the field however, in the interest of being constructive – the bigger issue at hand is how on earth this new law might be enforced.

How long did it take for Twitter to ensure that its delete command erased a tweet for good? And that’s just one site.

And what about freedom of speech? If someone were to write a post about an individual or company that wasn’t defamatory, but portrayed them in a negative light, could they asked for it to be removed? Where does the line get drawn?

We spoke to Barney Craggs, an identity & privacy consultant, about his thoughts on the subject. “How does France intend to apply jurisdiction outside France in this increasingly connected world? It’s not “right to forget”, more “right to gag others in possession of information at a certain point in future” – which is like a reverse NDA. There are some obvious potential criminal / grey area misuses for rules – a bit like a statute of limitations.”

And does the Internet ever really forget? Sites get cached, posts and pictures are blogged and re-posted. How difficult will it be for people to fully wipe out the traces of something then don’t want to be made pubic?

It’s far better to follow the laws of common sense than to rely on proposed legislation such as this. Even though it’s a good idea in theory, this could just end up being a massive drain on resource and to be honest, a bit of a waste of time. Craggs agrees, but also says that that legislation is no way to enforce or enhance privacy. “Legislation should be used to provide legal remedy for harm, but not for codifying what can or can’t be done.”