Re: EU Official: IP Is Personal

[Roland Perry <lists () internetpolicyagency com>]

In article <2132.1201236938 () turing-police cc vt edu>, 
Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu writes
> So - if you can work backwards from license plate info, telephone numbers,
> and IP addresses, and get a good idea of who the person is, and there's
> general agreement that the first two are "personal information" that allows
> (at least speculative) identification of the person, why are people having
> trouble with the concept that the third is personally identifying information
> as well?

Because they are IP engineers and they have lots of anecdotes about how 
an IP Address *might* be misleading when identifying an individual.

If they worked in a car maintenance shop, they'd be able to tell you how 
licence plates *might* be misleading when identifying an individual.

But in both cases they are missing the point: which is that EU Data 
Protection law looks at things from the opposite point of view.

ie If an IP address might *sometimes* reliably identify an individual, 
then everyone has to err on the side of caution and treat *all* IP 
addresses as personal data.
--
Roland Perry