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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.
And no way for server admins to track what virus infected bots are trying to break into their systems.
Even worse than this:
No way for ISPs to store in their DHCP server IP pool which IP addresses have already been given to customer networks.
Let's enforce this against the ISP of the judge who came up with this idea ;-)
Or maybe have them rethink the issue and specify in greater detail what should and shouldn't be allowed. If the problem is using IPs to identify people, instead of banning the storage of IP addresses one should ban the use of stored IP addresses to identify people?