Six years ago I was convicted of downloading indecent images and given a 1 year suspended sentence and 10 years SHPO and 10 years on the SOR. This was reported in the local press and was picked up by a couple of vigilante sites who copied and pasted the story along with photos they took from my then Facebook account. Six years on I have managed to get the SHPO dismissed so my offence is now classed as spent. If you Google my name now the original newspaper story no longer appears as it has been archived (yesterdays news) but links to a vigilante site called Track Em Down (TED) do still appear so I put is a request to Google asking for these links to my name to be removed as my conviction was over six years ago and is now spent and my SHPO has been dismissed.
They replied with their standard template rejection letter saying it was still in the public interest for links to this vigilante website to be linked to my name. I then contacted the ICO explaining that my conviction is now sprint and that a crown court judge had dismissed my SHPO five years early having read reports on my rehabilitation from the police and the probation service and that the vigilante site in question encourages vigilante action against people identified on their site so I could be in danger of attack and that I was finding it hard to find employment as most employers these days google the names of applicants to see what kind of social media presence they have and  they can find out about my spent conviction which legally they have no right to know about. Three months later I received a reply saying that the ICO agree with Googles decision and are going to take no action. I can only conclude that if you raise a concern with the ICO and you are a SO they don't even bother to look into it  (you get everything you deserve)

That may well be part of it, but given the problems experienced by another Forum user, I suspect that they look at the date the conviction would have become spent in England (where their office is) and go by that, regardless of whether the conviction is actually spent. Of course, that could well relate back to the category of offence.

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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)

This is an good article, about Google's so called, 'public interest' argument, for not removing links

https://arighttobeforgotten.co.uk/expertise/shpo-and-a-right-to-be-forgotten

"An argument by Google, to refuse to delist articles about your criminal conviction, because you are still subject to SHPO, could be overcome by the very existence of the SHPO. This is why:

Having an SHPO in place, means that the public interest is being protected by the SHPO, and therefore having links to articles, relating to the criminal conviction, adds nothing to the public protection.

The links only serve as an additional punishment of the offender."

https://arighttobeforgotten.co.uk/services/right-to-be-forgotten-sex-offence-delisting

I agree with the idea behind this article, but don't forget that the last Information Commissioner said that they wouldn't help in cases where the conviction is unspent. The SHPO keeps the conviction unspent, so although the article makes sense, here in the real world the SHPO is still significant. As the ICO won't help, the only other way to deal with it while the SHPO is still in force is to pay for an expensive lawyer. It might be that Google don't want to risk a court hearing setting a legal precedent, in which case an out of court settlement might be seen as money well spent, but there are no guarantees.

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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)

This is my take. Whilst my conviction is unspent, regardless of how badly it impacts me, I still have to inform employers, insurance companies and letting agencies. Without a (unlikely) change in the law it's public information.

Unfortunately my name is rather unique and I did had a pre-conviction public profile. I've not goggled my name for 5 years. who knows what horrors are out there for me to confront! 

However, once my conviction is spent, I will make an effort to get links removed.

Technically, you have to inform employers, insurers and letting agencies if you are asked. Insurers often hide question among the assumptions in their policy documents or other paperwork, so you can't assume that they don't want to know. Unless you are subject to direction from probation or the police, there is no obligation on you to disclose voluntarily. Once your conviction is spent, you should be able to get links removed, if you fill in the forms correctly and spoon-feed them the information. That might include proof that your conviction is actually spent, as one of our regulars has been finding out by applying to the ICO with a spent conviction.

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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)

My offence was a none contact downloading offence for which I was given a 12 month suspended sentence 7 years ago. After five years I managed to get my SHPO discharged and my conviction is now legally spent but still Google refuses to remove links to my name to two grubby vigilante sites as "Its in the public interest". I complained to the ICO attaching a copy of my SHPO discharge notice from the court but still they backed Google's decision so I just think the ICO has no interest if you are a convicted SO 

My offence was also a download-based one (images). It does appear that Google and ICO really aren't interested if you're an SO unless it's a really old one like 20+ years.

The "public interest" thing feels like a load of nonsense easy excuse too as there doesn't seem to be any real set standard for what constitutes "public interest". For example, I applied to Bing and to get results about me removed, they removed them the first time I asked and they were gone in about 3 days from their confirmation.

Google says it is still in the public interest. What metric are they running to back that up? Is it a case of XX amount of people still searching for me and my offence every day? Because I refuse to believe people are still searching about me years on from when I was last reported about at sentencing.

I posted in another thread about my efforts with ICO and they're just being quite dickish about it, to be honest and you have no way to appeal ICO's decision either. My latest effort I took nearly 6 months (due to their backlog) from my initial application, after 6 months of nothing I basically got "we're not going to speak to Google, piss off". So if I want to combat that I'd need to submit a new enquiry and go to the back of the queue, I can't just reply saying I disagree because XYZ or whatever - It's an utterly ludicrous system.

I reckon the only real way to get any proper movement on Google removals at the moment if you're an SO is a legal-based route. By that I mean getting an actual solicitor involved saying "You need to remove these links because Law-X, you're infringing this because Law-Y, failure to comply will result in blahblahblah".

Having just tried again to get details of my spent conviction on a couple of vigilante sites removed from search results on my name and given the same 'still in the public interest'  refusal reason by Google and the ICO I am thinking of taking legal advice. has anyone used Carter-Ruck law the firm recommended by Unlock? Or has anyone had any success getting information on spent convictions removed using a solicitor?

According to Unlock's website, you would have to approach them via Unlock. There is a questionnaire that they pass on. I'm guessing that if you contact them directly, you'll have to talk money first. 

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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)