Re: EU Official: IP Is Personal

[Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike () swm pp se>]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008, Lou Katz wrote:

> They are both right. If you have a dynamic IP such as most college students
> have, it is here-today-gone-tomorrow.

The local antipiracy organization in Sweden needed a permit to 
collect/handle IP+timestamp and save it in their database, as this 
information was regarded as personal information. Since ISPs regularily 
save who has an IP at what time, IP+timestamp can be used to discern at 
least what access port a certain IP was at, or in case of PPPoE etc, what 
account was used to obtain the IP that that time.

I still think IP+timestamp doesn't imply what person did something, 
license plate information tracking is also considered personal information 
even though it says nothing about who drove the car at that time, and I 
think IP+timestamp is approximately on the same level as a car license 
plate when it comes to level of personal information.

--
Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike () swm pp se