This is a question I had never thought of all especially if it actually belongs to me or not. By Loek Essers Oct 29, 2014 Europe’s top court is set to answer a question that seems to be as old as the Internet: Are IP addresses personal data?
Germany’s Federal Court of Justice was scheduled to rule on this Tuesday, but instead decided to refer the matter to the European Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
The answer to the question is crucial for ongoing discussions about the EU data protection reform as well as for the many websites that track and store users’ IP addresses, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV) said.
Moreover, if the CJEU rules that IP addresses are personal data, this could have huge consequences for the ease of use of the Internet in Europe. Under German law, personal data may only be stored with a user’s consent or for the purposes of billing and such. If IP addresses are considered personal data though, one of the possible consequence could be that Internet users would have to give their consent to store their address every time they visit a website, or alternatively, that websites would have to start storing them on a different legal basis, the VZBV said.
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My own opinin on this is a firm NO.
IP Adresses are assigned to and owned by the ISP, not the service user. This is my line of thinking for several reasons:
1) The days prior to broadband, it was very rare for a phone dialup user to have an assigned IP address. It changed on every dialup.
2) Even in the days of broadband, while some systems do use an assigned IP address, some do not. Some still reset/reassign the addresses
3) For broadband that does not assign IP addresses to the users, in the event of a system reboot/reset, IP addresses are likely to be changed. First come first serve as customer routers get signed in.
4) What happens when you switch from one ISP to another? Your address changes, it does not and cannot go with you. This is not like bringing your phone number with you to a new provider.
5) Service providers must apply for and obtain a range of IP addresses to use and provision for their cutomers, both for home routers but also for any hosted websites, as well as the internal services like DHCP, email, DNS, etc etc.
No.. I do not think that the home user owns the IP address at all. Even the terminology that describes IP addresses terms it as a 'lease'. There are so many arguments against the IP address as being conidered personal property that I think any court case is essentially frivelous.
EDIT:
6) When you are away from home and connect your device to a public or private WiFi, you will be using THEIR system that has a different IP address, not the one you normally would use from home. Your IP address does not go with you when you are on the road connecting.
IP Adresses are assigned to and owned by the ISP, not the service user. This is my line of thinking for several reasons:
1) The days prior to broadband, it was very rare for a phone dialup user to have an assigned IP address. It changed on every dialup.
2) Even in the days of broadband, while some systems do use an assigned IP address, some do not. Some still reset/reassign the addresses
3) For broadband that does not assign IP addresses to the users, in the event of a system reboot/reset, IP addresses are likely to be changed. First come first serve as customer routers get signed in.
4) What happens when you switch from one ISP to another? Your address changes, it does not and cannot go with you. This is not like bringing your phone number with you to a new provider.
5) Service providers must apply for and obtain a range of IP addresses to use and provision for their cutomers, both for home routers but also for any hosted websites, as well as the internal services like DHCP, email, DNS, etc etc.
No.. I do not think that the home user owns the IP address at all. Even the terminology that describes IP addresses terms it as a 'lease'. There are so many arguments against the IP address as being conidered personal property that I think any court case is essentially frivelous.
EDIT:
6) When you are away from home and connect your device to a public or private WiFi, you will be using THEIR system that has a different IP address, not the one you normally would use from home. Your IP address does not go with you when you are on the road connecting.
That David is the same opinion as mine, I had always assumed that they were assigned on a temporary basis so they could not be owned.
Well, to be very picky, they are very much owned. By the ISP. A simple WHOIS of an IP address or domain name will provide the owner information: the ISP that controls it 🙂@ wrote:
That David is the same opinion as mine, I had always assumed that they were assigned on a temporary basis so they could not be owned.
I meant be a particular person as opposed to an ISP but I know what you mean.@ wrote:
Well, to be very picky, they are very much owned. By the ISP. A simple WHOIS of an IP address or domain name will provide the owner information: the ISP that controls it :)@ wrote:
That David is the same opinion as mine, I had always assumed that they were assigned on a temporary basis so they could not be owned.
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