Well, the Portuguese are among the European Union citizens least likely to ask for the “right to be forgotten” online. Here, for every 10 thousand people there is one request – a ratio comparable only to Poland and Greece.
More broadly, there were around 1,200 “right to be forgotten” requests in Portugal in 2022, down 700 from the roughly 1,900 in 2021.
This conclusion was reached by the cybersecurity company Surfshark, which conducted a study on this topic by analyzing 32 European countries that submitted queries to Google and Microsoft Bing.
According to Surfshark, of the countries analyzed in 2022, 28 showed a decrease in requests for the “right to be forgotten,” which could indicate a potential lack of information and awareness on the issue.But there are still worse countries than Portugal. In 2022, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia submitted less than one application for every 10 thousand people.
Conversely, in 2022, France, Germany and the UK accounted for more than 50% of all “right to be forgotten” requests. Germany and the UK ranked 2nd and 3rd with 24K and 16K searches, followed by Italy and Spain in 4th and 5th place with 12K and 11K searches.
According to Surfshark, the vast majority of queries were directed to Google.