The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Sweden: IP numbers are personal...unless you're a pirate

Court ruling no defense

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

A ruling from a Swedish court that IP numbers should be considered personal data will not have any impact on the country's recently passed anti-piracy law.

The Swedish Supreme Administrative Court ruled today that IP numbers should be considered personal information. This is a hot topic because copyright holders routinely use IP numbers to identify people they accuse of illegal file sharing. IP numbers, although issued to a computer, can often be easily tracked back to an individual.

But a policy adviser at Sweden's ministry of Justice told the Register: "The rumours that this decision will kill off IPRED [Sweden's anti-Pirate Bay law] are wrong, because the bill creating the law includes an exemption for rights holders - they may request and keep IP numbers for this purpose."

An early version of this story suggested that the court ruling could effectively kill off attempts to trace Swedish file sharers. There's a Google translated version of the new version here.

Sweden's data protection regulator will look at the implications of IPRED in the autumn. ®

What you need to know about cloud backup

Latest Comments

IP.....UP

We all P

0
0

@ shane8

Good luck with that, I dont think there will be many proxies across the world that will stay up for the lenght of time needed to get a torrent if they allow such activity.

Back on topic, if you think about it logically, wouldnt the IP be the property of the ISP? They are just assigning part of their network to you after all.

0
0

wtf ?

So IP is personal info UNLESS you have an unproven allegation of a possible minor misdemeanor ?

I mean wtf ? Shouldn't laws make sense ?

0
0

More from The Register

 breaking news
Number of cops abusing Police National Computer access on the rise
Only a telegram from the Queen can get you off it
 breaking news
NSA whistleblower to tech firms, Obama: 'Grow a pair!'
Ed Snowden: Email tracking grabs 'IPs, raw data, content, headers, attachments, everything'
 breaking news
Ecuador: All right, Julian, you CAN stay on our sofa - it's your human right
Minister and Wikileaker share cosy chat in tiny London flat
SCO vs. IBM battle resumes over ownership of Unix
Zombie lawsuit back and wants to suck the brains out of Linux
Google flings another £1m at online child sex abuse vid CRACKDOWN
See, see, we're trying, ad giant tells Daily Mail UK.gov
 breaking news
NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron
Whatever they are up to, it's all above board, we're told
PRISM snitch claims NSA hacked Chinese targets since 2009
Snowden suddenly looks safer in Hong Kong after revelations
 breaking news
US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 BEELLLION of you
Americans assured they are not in the NSA's sights