In a decision dated 24 February 2017 (CE, 10^th ch. 24 February 2017, no. 391000, 393769, 399999 and 401258), the Conseil d'Etat referred eight questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a preliminary ruling on the relationship between the judgment of 13 May 2014 on the right to dereference (CJEU, 13 May 2014, "Google" Judgment, C-131/12) and Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data.

This decision follows appeals on grounds of ultra vires by the persons concerned against decisions by the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) refusing to give Google Inc. formal notice to remove links affecting them.

The Court of Justice of the European Union will have to consider the following questions in particular:

• Does the ban on processing sensitive data (e.g. health, political or trade union opinions, data relating to a criminal conviction, etc.) apply to the operator of a search engine?

• If the answer is yes :
  • Should the search engine operator systematically comply with requests to remove links to pages containing such data?
  • can it refuse to grant such requests if the conditions for lawful processing of the data are met, or if the data is processed solely for the purposes of journalism or artistic or literary expression?

• In the event of a negative response, if it finds that the web pages contain data that may not be published lawfully, must it :
  • remove links to these web pages from the list of results
  • take this circumstance into account when assessing the merits of the request
  • or does this circumstance have no bearing on the assessment he must make?

• If the data has become incomplete, inaccurate or no longer up to date, is the search engine operator obliged to grant the request for de-listing?

• Does information relating to the indictment of an individual or relating to a trial, and the resulting conviction, constitute data relating to criminal offences and convictions and therefore sensitive data?