Is Your IP Address Your Personal Information?
from the seems-like-a-stretch dept
Some European politicians in charge of "privacy" issues have decided that your IP address should be considered personal info, along the lines of your name or address. This has various implications for how sites like Google store IP addresses -- but also should raise some questions about what sorts of information should be considered private. We've already talked about why you should just assume that any information you put online is already public info, but an IP address isn't exactly something that you "put" online. It's something that automatically identifies where you're coming from and is a necessary part of internet communications. While it is true that an IP address can often be used to trace back the identity of an individual, it seems a little odd to think that a bit of information that your computer announces to every site you visit should somehow be considered private. By it's very nature your IP address is rather public -- and if you want to "hide" that information there are various anonymity tools and proxy servers to do so. It seems like a rather artificial construct to suddenly claim that an IP address, which is used to announce where you're coming from, now needs to be considered private information.In fact, this whole discussion raises an important (and all-too-often-ignored) issue: personal information and privacy isn't exactly a binary situation, where information either is, or is not, private. There's a whole spectrum -- and it depends very much on the circumstance. Your name is personal info, but most people are public enough with it. Your credit card information clearly is "private," but you share it with plenty of merchants as part of the transaction that you're making. Your phone number is personal information that you may keep private in some cases, but are willing to make public in others. So, the privacy of personal information varies a great deal based on the context and use -- and it seems a bit forced to suddenly declare that a particular piece of information is personal, and therefore must be kept private.
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Filed Under: europe, ip addresses, privacy
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It's their Contenent...
The EU is filled of shit, This ask is nothing more than a dance.
If the US Decides to participate, you turn your back on Rock And Roll, dance and just basic freedom.
So let the EU run their group as they wish. Process-oriented.
We all know True creativity comes when you break out of the process.
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It's really only personal by association.
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Static
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Re: Static
Its interesting that nothing has been reported on Jenna Bush's party times since the BellSouth/SBC merger.
Did something change? Is she not interesting anymore? She was one hot piece of texas ass, like Stan Sigman. Did she die? Perhaps something is keeping her from speaking and having a public life? Maybe SBCWireless?
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I get DSL through SBC and I have a dynamic IP.
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IP address private? LOL!!!!
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Privacy = Discretion
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Privacy is Paramount!
First, it's unequivocally true that an IP address is required for Internet connectivity and communication. That much remains un-refuted, and with good reason. However, as he alluded, you don't have the same control over your IP address as you do your phone number or your credit card.
With that, I'd like to posit the following. You don't have a choice what IP address you're assigned in most cases, and that IP address can be used to identify you by not only spammers but by hackers. Now of course, no matter how a law attempts to obfuscate your identity, hackers with a sniffer can see it. But I think the point of the EU argument is that government agencies and commercial entities shouldn't be able to tell who's visiting a site via their IP address. That makes sense. One doesn't ASK to be identified by obtaining an address. I, as a consumer, would like to have the knowledge that my identity isn't available to whomever asks. Much like a home address, it's how information is delivered to you and you don't have a choice in the matter. But, if the government and companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, et. al., were limited to recording only the first two or three octets of the address, it would limit their ability to identify me as an individual while allowing them to determine country of origin and even as granular as state or ISP.
In the above reader responses, I've noticed many misconceptions as to the nature of "Dynamic" IP assignment. DHCP leases are generally awarded to the same client (based on MAC address) if that client requests that IP address within a short period of time after its expiration. The result is a nearly static IP address. The only time it ever changes is if you turn off your computer and during its off time your lease expires. If from the command prompt you type "ipconfig /all", you'll notice the lease begin and end times which is usually 1 to 3 days. Also, there are many ways for an ISP to look and see who had that address on a given day so don't be fooled into thinking that because your IP address changes that you can't be traced.
But I digress. I DO support the idea of making private an individuals identity with relation to his IP address. That won't stop hackers, but it might slow down spammers and will certainly stop Uncle Sam from discovering who you are without Warrant. Perhaps it's time for a 4th Amendment for IP addresses.
Regards,
Tony
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dynamic IP addresses
Google keeps ALL searches you did forever!!! there is no law that's against it. everything you do online can be traced back to you unless you're carefully and hide your IP with help of proxy servers.
In the EU people have privacy than in the US. Now which is more like the USSR now?
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Russia?
Anyway, as I understand this, the new rulings are to do with the storage of IP addresses and how they are used to identify individuals. In other words, it's a logical extension of rules that already state that companies can't keep my name and address ad infinitum unless they have good reason, to IP addresses.
If anyone has a different viewpoint, do you have a better link than the random San Diego website linked from this article?
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I am watching
Yes, we keep logs. No, can't see which files the client downloaded. Can see what IP address was assigned to which user at what time. Can't see what sites the client visited. Only way we would give that information is if we were ordered by a court.
We COULD probably make a huge database of everything our clients do, but it's not economically worthy. Why spend money on it when it's not required by law. If we didn't have to keep the logs at all, it would be even better! ISPs, like all other businesses, don't like to waste money. Who's going to pay for storage servers, sniffers, loggers. Not to mention that unpacking each packet to see what's in it is time and processor consuming, which would slow down our network considerably.
Now, can your vehicle license plate be private? It seems pretty public to me, and yet, it is traceable.
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Relevance?
For whatever reason, the article won't load for me, but I'll read it later and post again when I'm better informed of the backstory
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Is Your IP Address Your Personal Information?
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Yes, IP address is personal
The argument of whether such personal information should be considered private is a different matter.
Many countries in the EU have laws which govern what information may be STORED about individuals. Thus, a web server obviously can use your IP address to send you pages - just like nobody needs permission to use your telephone number to phone you up. However, Data Protection laws impose controls about what personal information can be stored about individuals, as well as which individuals. For instance a company can store information about its customers, but (depending on the laws) cannot store information about people who have no relationship with that company. Similarly, it restricts what information can be shared by different companies or entities.
Thus for instance, when you apply for a job, your prospective employer won't be able to buy a list of websites you've visited in the last 3 months from your ISP, or check whether a female employee has bought pregnancy tests recently.
That's the theory anyway.
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ISP'S tracking what?
I believe what they they want is for company's like Goggle, Yahoo and MSN to stop tracking your movements/searches by using the number given to you by your ISP's.
With that in mind so why should Google and others keep track of your searches for a year and a half on their computers? It's none of their damn business and the EU agrees.
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Dynamic IP
In the past, some ISPs were changing the IP of customers who were running servers without paying the additional fee.
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Re: ISP'S tracking what?
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Definetly Not Private Info
Thats not personal information, its a number given to you by the ISP so that the world can in fact know how to reach your computer. In effect, its quite the opposite.
The problem with spammers and such isn't them knowing your IP, its them knowing your e-mail address, your name, etc..
IP addresses getting claimed personal information and legally defended is just another example of how the internet is slowly losing its special stature as a truly unlimited forum for sharing and interaction.
Want to protect yourself from hackers and spammers?
Use Firefox, don't download useless programs from banners and don't use your real full name or any other such info through a non fully secured connection.
Its just common sense.
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Intersting
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That is, the information contained within the relationship between the ISP and the customer (i.e. the IP address) should be treated as "confidential".
If y'all would review the article and your comments and correctly replace 'private information' with 'confidential information', I believe you will have substantially strengthened your argument.
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Mike, you are contradicting yourself.....again!
Again you are contradicting yourself...
"By it's very nature your IP address is rather public"
False, I don't know your IP address unless you visit my website.
"Your credit card information clearly is "private"
Correct, because I won't know your credit card number until you buy something in my store.
So, why do you feel one is "public" and the other "private" when they can only be obtained in essentially the same way (user must provide it by some action on their part)?
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Re: Mike, you are contradicting yourself.....again
Further, since most online crimes are traced by IP address, it is a piece of your "identity" - and thus forging someone else's should be a crime.
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Postal Addresses?
In a way, I can see how EU is right. Even though it is a public number, it is very much as much a private number as your physical postal address. Only difference between the two is electronic transmission vs physical transmission. Am I seeing things wrong here? I know I'm crossing the internet world with real world, but I feel in this specific instance, it validates.
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They are, but won't hurt much
Colin Joss
East Lothian, Haddington
United Kingdom
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Philip's point
You are making a point there.. Your postal address can be private, but so far won't hurt too much for most people, if other find out about it. Unless you are someone with lot of enemy and need to hide and stay anonymuous, so that they won't bomb your house or your PC.
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You are making a point there.. Your postal address can be private, but so far won't hurt too much for most people, if other find out about it. Unless you are someone with lot of enemy and need to hide and stay anonymuous, so that they won't bomb your house or your PC.
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protection system
I think it is very important to have good protection system like firewall, adware scanner, etc. installed. I'm not expecting bomb on my PC, but don't want any thiefs or hackers to go in either.
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Dynamic IP's
There are Pros and Cons to both as most people already know this.
Regards,
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That's email broken then!
Emails include headers identifying the IP address of the originating machine and every mail server that handled it... so nobody can store email for more than a week without "good reason" in the EU?
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ARE PEOPLE STUPID?
If you don't like it.. DON'T USE SEARCH ENGINES!
European phone companies are REQUIRED by law to log information about calls you make/receive (number, time, date, location coordinates of mobiles, etc) and keep it for years. If you don't like that.. DON'T USE PHONES!
ALSO UNDERSTAND THAT IF YOUR MOBILE PHONE IS SWITCHED ON, ITS LOCATION IS BEING TRACKED AND LOGGED!
EU email service providers are REQUIRED by law to log information about email you send/receive (from email, to email, time, date, subject, etc) and keep it for years. If you don't like that.. DON'T USE EMAIL!
Difference is that those are in the name of law enforcement whereas Google's internal data use isn't *YET* as accessible to EU governments.. so if they can't have it.. Google can't have it!
I bet within a couple of year the EU will U-turn and make it the law that Google keep such data for years and disclose it the the governments/police when asked or give them constant unrestricted access to it.. see how you like you privacy then!
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Find Your Ip-Address Now Test Now
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