Thanks for doing this. It'll be interesting to know how many it does affect, because I wonder if this affects the 'right to be forgotten'.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

That's why the "web access" option is interesting because it does have access to the live internet. To test, I just asked it about a share price in Feb 2024 and it was correct.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

Ah okay, cool.
Well there's the outcome for me anyway. I'm more than happy to try these wee experiments in the hopes that they can hopefully help or inform people.

It scrapes the net, but only from a fixed point in the past, so presumably if a conviction were still Googleable in Jan 2022, then it would show up, even if the details were removed from Google searches after 2022.

I gave it a wee go although I couldn't seem to see the web access button at the bottom so this might not be accurate.

I tried two variations and got nothing back for either.


When I tried to be a bit more specific and initially just added 'sex' at the end it freaked out and said they're not allowed to do stuff like that - So changed it to 'sex offender' and it doesn't really give much.

We may have a very interesting 21st Century problem.
Could 'ChatGPT Effect' become the new 'Google Effect'? ChatGPT - https://chat.openai.com/chat

Khafka, you might be a good test subject. (Or anyone who is still Google-able now to see if it is the case.)
I've just ChatGPT'd my name and it's come up with a response and linking to newspapers.
Now that you've been successful in De-Googling, if you ChatGPT yourself, so to speak, do you still come up?
Everyone else, do you come up in results?
If you type: 'Who is NAME from LOCATION'
You can allow it web access (button at the bottom).

This could then also be the case with each of the ChatGPT-type models, especially if people move away from Googling, such as Elon Musk's Grok and Google's Gemini.

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Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

One angle to try with regards “public interest” is to turn the phrase around. it’s not about the public’s interest - of course they’d always be interested in such info for gossip / stigma - it’s actually about managing risk in the public interest.
You’ve done your time, there’s no SOR or SHPO, therefore in law and also public risk assessment you are no longer deemed to be a risk to the public which the police (PPU) need to manage.
Try that.

Oh absolutely, I know nobody uses Bing but I'm trying to cover all my bases here, at least with the more 'popular' search engines.

Bing doesn't actually seem to have too many links about me in the search results, only 4 compared to about a dozen with Google.

Yes, the ICO has to be worth a try, especially as you effectively have Google on your side. I've mentioned the difference in laws before, but if your conviction would also be spent in England & Wales, that means the spent conviction argument applies across the UK and not just in Scotland.

Who uses Bing? Apparently, Bing has just under 4% of the market share in the UK, so fewer than 1 in 25. I only use it because I use Edge rather than Chrome.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

Don't give up khafa! Considering the convictions are now spent and Google have accepted this as good enough reason to remove the results - a stab at the ICO could be a good route.
I suppose the 'good thing' here, however, is that nobody actually uses bing! haha
Best of luck.