Google received some 15,000 requests last year from Dutch nationals who want to be ‘forgotten’ by its search engine, broadcaster Nos reports on Friday.

Last May the European Court of Justice ruled EU citizens do have the right to be forgotten by search engines, and since last June, Google has carried an online form which people can fill out to make their requests.

Of those 15,000 Dutch requests, 57% applications were rejected, the broadcaster says. Most requests concern removing links to events which happened in the past and are no longer relevant, as well as photographs and stories about people’s youth.

People in the public eye are less likely to be successful than others, Nos said. ‘More can be known about public figures than those who are not,’ Jacob Kohnstamm, of the Dutch privacy watchdog CBP, said.

The Nos lists several successful requests. These include a woman who had a very serious illness and has since recovered. She argued the media coverage of her disease was causing her problems applying for jobs.

In another case, Google agreed to remove links to articles about a court case because the complainant was found not guilty on appeal.

However, a request by a public figure to have references to benefit fraud committed by him was rejected, Nos says.

And a senior accountant who wanted links removed to articles about a dispute with a builder was also disappointed. Google said the links should remain because the articles are factually correct and the conflict is fairly recent.