Re: EU Official: IP Is Personal

[Matt Palmer <mpalmer () hezmatt org>]

On Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at 10:33:20PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2008, at 8:55 PM, Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:
> > On Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:39:53 PST, fred () cisco com said:
> > > What we can do with IP addresses is conclude that the user of the
> > > machine with an address is likely to be one of its usual users. We
> > > can't say that with 100% certainty, because there are any number of
> > > ways people can get "unusual" access. But even so, if one can show a
> > > pattern of usage, the usual suspects can probably figure out which of
> > > them, or what other "unusual" user, might have done this or that.
> >
> > And oddly enough, license plates on cars act *exactly the same way*  
> > - but
> > nobody seems at all surprised when police can work backwards from a  
> > plate
> > and come up with a suspect (who, admittedly, may not have been  
> > involved if
> > the car was borrowed/stolen/etc).
>
> In order to be using the license plate, you had to be physically  
> present in the car.
>
> > You can work backwards from a phone number to a person, without a  
> > *guarantee*
> > that you have the right person - but I don't see anybody claiming that
> > phone numbers don't qualify as "personal information" under the EU  
> > definition.
>
> In order to be on the telephone number, you (almost always) need to be  
> present
> at the site where that phone number is terminated.
>
> I don't know about your IP addresses, but, people can use my IP  
> addresses
> from a number of locations which are nowhere near the jurisdiction in  
> which
> my network operates, so, I don't really see the correlation here with  
> license
> plates or phone numbers.

In order to be using the IP address, your packets (almost always) have to
pass through the device allocated that address.

- Matt