Open door

Two requests for deletions from the online archive led to some head scratching recently. The first came from a journalist who, several years ago, wrote about her young son's attitude to clothing. The article caused no bother until her son - by now computer literate - discovered it on the web. He was upset and embarrassed, and was being teased about it. The second request was from the parents of a child who was born with severe disabilities. Our article followed an interview they gave to a Sunday newspaper about the home birth that they had arranged. When they gave that interview they were thinking only about the print publication. It didn't occur to them that the online version might be picked up by other websites, and they didn't anticipate that cyber-bullies would send emails blaming them for their son's condition. They were finding it difficult to cope, and we deleted the article for compassionate reasons.

The first request was harder to decide. With few exceptions the general rule is that the Guardian does not remove material from its archive. We initially refused the request but then had a change of heart; further discussion of the issues developed our thinking about cases involving children.

Sometimes we are asked to remove an article because it's out of date. The facts, we are told, no longer apply - for example a (bad) restaurant review. To delete material is to collude in erasing history, and we try to avoid this. As far as restaurant reviews are concerned, common sense applies: the date of the review tells readers whether it is current, and there is no need to delete an archived piece.

The self-proclaimed rehabilitated offender is a more complex proposition. Recently a reader asked that his name be removed from an article. He was not, he said, trying to excuse his crime, but he had served his time and paid the price. We declined. Court reports serve the principle of open justice; they tell readers about criminal cases, and there is a strong public-interest argument for leaving them alone.

The online archive is a public (and free) historical record of (almost) everything published by the Guardian. Requests for deletions make us think again about its reason for being. How important is its integrity, its wholeness? The complete archive goes back to 1999; it does not include every version of every article published, only the final versions; and, in common with all newspapers, we remove stories for legal reasons. It may seem that the archive is therefore, in any case, a patchy record, but it is not significantly compromised. There are relatively few deletions, especially when you consider the volume of articles published every day.

Yesterday's newspapers used to be, if not tomorrow's chip paper, reasonably difficult to get hold of. Almost all newspapers kept cuttings files about public figures, but constructing a personal history of a private individual involved a bit of sleuthing. An ordinary person could be reasonably confident that the past was another country where he or she did things differently. Search engines such as Google bring the past in line with the present; personal histories can be assembled in seconds. For this reason wise children (if they exist) take care when talking about themselves online. Like a tattoo, the stuff you put on the web may be permanent or very difficult to remove. You may regret it later.

I discussed the cases mentioned here with several Guardian journalists. All agreed that while the integrity of the online archive is vital, it is unrealistic to expect it to be unassailable. Inevitably there will be legal interventions - court orders, settlements and compliance with legislation - and in exceptional circumstances we may remove material.

Articles involving children and young people may be special cases. In some cases there may be alternatives to deleting material: it may be possible to protect the wholeness of the archive by anonymously an article, perhaps including an explanation that it originally identified the subject but was later amended at his or her request. There is more to say on this topic. Our thinking about deletions and amendments is work in progress.