EU Official: IP Is Personal

Thu Jan 24 11:50:57 UTC 2008

In article <1E2B60F8-A74E-41C7-B1F0-84F4B42911F2 at cisco.com>, Fred Baker 
<fred at cisco.com> writes
>What I find interesting here is the Jekyll/Hyde nature of it.  European 
>ISPs are required to keep expensive logs of the behavior of subscribers 
>for forensic data mining, accessible under subpoena, for extensive 
>periods like 6-24 months (last I heard it was 7 years in Italy, but 
>that may now be incorrect), but the information is deemed private and 
>therefore inappropriate to keep under EU privacy rules. ISPs are 
>required to keep inappropriate information at their own expense in case 
>forensic authorities decide to pay an occasional pittance to access 
>some small quantity of it.

Putting aside for a moment the issue of "whose dollars pay for it" there 
is no fundamental contradiction in the proposition that private sector 
information can be mandated to be kept for minimum periods, is 
confidential, but nevertheless can be acquired by lawful subpoena.

Think about banking records, for example, which are confidential, 
routinely examined in criminal enquiries, and which have to be kept for 
various minimum periods by accountancy law. Operationally, the banks 
have had to invest in special departments to do just that, it's simply 
part of the cost of doing business.
-- 
Roland Perry
Internet Policy Agency