The European Commission has proposed a legal ''right to be forgotten'', allowing internet users to ensure shameful pictures or other embarrassing online content is deleted from Facebook or other social networking websites.

EU data protection rules are to be updated to take into account the popularity of digital networking sites where people share photographs or personal details that can haunt them when they become distributed online.

A photo like this may soon be history if the European Commission makes it a legal right to have it deleted.

The commission has received complaints about Facebook's privacy policy, after users found profiles and photographs did not disappear for good when deleted.

Viviane Reding, Europe's rights commissioner, said the world of data protection had been transformed by popular new technologies in the 15 years since data protection legislation was last amended.