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Swedish Court Says IP Numbers Privacy Protected
oh2 writes "The highest applicable Swedish court, Regeringsrätten, has ruled that IP numbers are protected (in Swedish) since they can be traced to individuals. This means that only government agencies are allowed to track and store IP addresses, leaving 'anti-piracy' advocates with no legal way to find possible copyright infringers." Update: 06/18 14:42 GMT by KD : The original linked article had been pulled due to factual errors and a new article has been posted (link replaced above). Here is a Google translation. The new article makes clear that the ruling does not affect the anti-piracy efforts of rights-holders.
Update: 06/18 15:08 GMT by KD : Behind the link below is a summary in English of the article sent in by the submitter, oh2.
This autumn Datainspektionen will start monitoring how the IPRED law is applied when it comes to disclosure of personal information. A recent verdict in the Regeringsrätten, Sweden's highest applicable court, has upheld Datainspektionens decision that IP addresses are to be considered personal information and therefore protected under law.
In 2005 Datainspektionen ruled that collecting and storing personal information online like copyright advocates were doing was a breach of the Swedish PUL, Personal information act, that regulates how and what kind of information that can be traced to a single individual that can be stored. The anti-piracy organizations were quickly granted an exemption though, that expired March 31st. Starting April 1st this year IPRED allows holders of copyright to apply to the courts for this information.
Datainspektionen will now monitor closely how any personal information acquired from the courts in this manner is used by copyright holders.
Update: 06/18 15:08 GMT by KD : Behind the link below is a summary in English of the article sent in by the submitter, oh2.
This autumn Datainspektionen will start monitoring how the IPRED law is applied when it comes to disclosure of personal information. A recent verdict in the Regeringsrätten, Sweden's highest applicable court, has upheld Datainspektionens decision that IP addresses are to be considered personal information and therefore protected under law.
In 2005 Datainspektionen ruled that collecting and storing personal information online like copyright advocates were doing was a breach of the Swedish PUL, Personal information act, that regulates how and what kind of information that can be traced to a single individual that can be stored. The anti-piracy organizations were quickly granted an exemption though, that expired March 31st. Starting April 1st this year IPRED allows holders of copyright to apply to the courts for this information.
Datainspektionen will now monitor closely how any personal information acquired from the courts in this manner is used by copyright holders.
The article had a lot of errors and DN has replaced it with a new article: http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/nyheter/ny-dom-paverkar-inte-ipredlagen-1.894500 In short: They can still do what they want, but they need a permit for it.
the first article has been removed, since it was wrong on several points.
http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/nyheter/ny-dom-paverkar-inte-ipredlagen-1.894500
the court says: IP's are personal information, therefore you can only get this information through a court of law, and this ruling does not affect the Ipred law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPRED
so a sysadm is not prohibited in managing his own network.
~men are from earth. women are from earth. deal with it.~
"The highest applicable Swedish court, RegeringsrÃtten, has ruled that IP numbers are protected (in Swedish) since they can be traced to individuals. This means that only government agencies are allowed to track and store IP adresses, leaving "anti-piracy" advocates with no legal way to find possible copyright infringers."
This is pretty much the way things are, and have been, in Norway now for many years. And so far I have heard none of my friends in IT, nor anyone in the media, complain about "And no way for server admins to track what virus infected bots are trying to break into their systems."being a problem.
The Long Now Foundation
It's not a problem as while the agency responsible for pushing companies to secure, delete or reorganize the information they hold on individuals, they haven't really gone after web-server logs and systems used to track virus infected bots. But if you try using logs to catch filesharers, you might suddenly get in trouble. I guess we're just a bit more flexible when it comes to applying common sense.
- These characters were randomly selected.