  As the debate in Europe escalated, many RtE advocates argued that the (former) EU Directive on Data Protection (Directive 95/46/EC), which protects the privacy rights citizens of all EU countries, includes language that indirectly supported RtE. For example, they noted that Article 12 (“Right of Access”) of that directive grants “the rectification, erasure, or blocking of data the processing of which does not comply with the provisions of the Directive because the information is…inaccurate” (see the European Commission’s “Fact Sheet on ‘The Right to Be Forgotten’ Ruling”). So, citizens of EU countries already had an explicit legal right to have inaccurate personal information about them removed/erased from the Internet, or at least de-linked or de-indexed from search engines. Some RtE supporters also believed that Article 12 could be interpreted to imply a right to the erasure/de-linking of online personal information that is no longer deemed to be relevant.