EU Official: IP Is Personal

Owen DeLong owen at delong.com
Thu Jan 24 22:35:41 UTC 2008


I'm sorry, but, I have a great deal of difficulty seeing how an IP can  
be considered
personally identifying.

For example, in my home, I have static addresses.  However, the number  
of
different people using those addresses would, to me, imply that you  
cannot
personally identify anyone based solely on the IP address they are using
within my network.  Certainly, you cannot say that I initiated all of  
the packets
which came from my addresses.

Another example would be a retail store that I work with as a SCUBA  
Instructor.
They also have static IP addresses, but, I would not say that any of  
the traffic
coming from the store is necessarily personally identifiable.  Our  
entire
staff (half a dozen instructors, a dozen or so divemasters and AIs, the
owner, and at least one other retail assistant) source traffic from  
within
that network.

The larger the business, the less identifiable the addresses become,  
generally.
However, even in these ultra-small examples, I don't feel that the  
addresses
are, in themselves, personally identifying.

Owen




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