Google takes off private information from search results

Google has announce that it has adjusted its personal information policy which would lead to the removal of such information from search results, TopNaija.ng can confirm.

The change, which was made on Thursday, put confidential, personal medical records in the bracket of information Google may remove unprompted from search results.

Other examples of such information include national or government issued identification numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers and images of signatures.

“We want to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible, but there are a few instances where we will remove content from Search,” the search company wrote in a blogpost.

“We remove content from our search results if it includes child sexual abuse imagery and we also remove content in response to valid legal requests, such as copyright notifications that meet the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”

The last change to the removal policy was made in 2015 with the addition of ‘nude or sexually explicit images that were uploaded or shared without your consent’ to address revenge porn.

The recent additions to Google’s policy is a change from the search company’s traditional hands-off approach, which resists censorship attempts.

With the spread of fake news and misinformation, Google adjusted its search results to place contested information to combat fake news.

As one of the world’s most popular search engine, removing information from Google reduces the visibility of such information although it can be accessed with other search engines.