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rm30yesterday at 7:44 PM0 repliesview on HN

Not long ago, Italian Supreme Court (Cassazione, ord. 34217/2025) established a critical principle reflecting a broader trend in personal data management: the "digital image" of a person must reflect their actual current situation through complete and accurate information. The court rejected deletion but endorsed contextualization, articles must explicitly note the acquittal (assoluzione) or dismissal that concluded the investigation. An article mentioning "investigation for [crime]" without noting "subsequently acquitted" is factually incomplete, therefore false.

This principle applies directly to search engines and data processors. When Courtsdesk was deleted before reaching AI companies, the government recognized the constraint: AI systems can't apply this "completeness" standard. They preserve raw archives without contextual updates. They can't distinguish between "investigato" (under investigation) and "assolto" (aquitted). They can't enforce the court's requirement that information must be "correttamente aggiornata con la notizia dell'esito favorevole" (properly updated to reflect the favorable resolution of the proceedings).

The UK government prevented the structural violation the Cassazione just identified: permanent archival of incomplete truth. This isn't about suppressing information, it's about refusing to embed factually false contexts into systems designed for eternity.