EU official: IP is personal

[RedEarth]

Source: Associated Press

IP addresses, string of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union's group of data privacy regulators said Monday.

Germany's data protection commissioner, Peter Scharr, leads the EU group preparing a report on how well the privacy policies of Internet search engines operated by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others comply with EU privacy law.

He told a European Parliament hearing on online data protection that when someone is identified by an IP, or Internet protocol, address "then it has to be regarded as personal data."

His view differs from that of Google, which insists an IP address merely identifies the location of a computer, not who the individual user is -- something strictly true but which does not recognize that many people regularly use the same computer terminal and IP address.



Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8UAGH901.htm

[uberblonde]

1. What about dynamic ISPs?

My Comcast ISP changes every few months.

[frog92969]

2. Comcast can tell them..

who you are from the time period that you had the address.

[BadgerKid]

4. ...well, I doubt it's who actually is using it

but the fact that someone was using that port a certain time. That port is associated with a physical street address and a billable party on their records. I'd bet it's the same for DSL and dialup.

[frog92969]

7. "who you are"=if "you" are paying the bill

Sorry for my general statement.

[BadgerKid]

10. No prob.

:hi:

[CatholicEdHead]

3. How does this take NAT into account?

Or IPv4 vs IPv6 Protocols?

[BadgerKid]

5. I believe so

Your internal address is just masqueraded as the external IP address. Also, in the header data of the IP protocol there is a kind of "count" parameter that ticks off how many NATs a particular packets has gone through.

[ben_meyers]

6. How is it any different from a phone #

Just a string of digits that identify a phone, not a person. Is a phone # considered personal information?

[Art_from_Ark]

9. I think it would be personal information

at least, in the case of an unlisted number.

[RL3AO]

8. My IP changes all the time.

Maybe there are not as many dynamic ISP's in Europe.

[lanlady]

11. Scharr has a point--

--Especially since IPv6 will do away with the need for dynamic IP addressing and NAT (because there will be a gazillion IP addresses), network hosts will have static IPv6 addresses. What with spyware and other subterfuge to track movements on the Web, your computer's IP address can acquire a history of visited sites etc. reflecting your personal browsing habits and patterns, just as it may be possible to profile a person based on the phone numbers he or she has called/received on a personal phone. Google knows this very well, so I think their objections are a bit disingenuous.