Privacy Protection for Users (was: Re: [Foundation-l] Re: Privacy concerns)

[Jean-Baptiste Soufron]

Well you can argue that they are wrong, but from a legal point of view, 
IP numbers are personal data. I just wrote a piece of paper about all of 
this :

http://soufron.free.fr/soufron-spip/article.php3?id_article=103

That may surprise most wikipedians, but from a legal point of view, it’s 
impossible to pretend that IP numbers are not personal data. This point 
is addressed by point 25 and 26 of 2002/58/CE stating that :

"The data relating to subscribers processed within electronic 
communications networks to establish connections and to transmit 
information contain information on the private life of natural persons 
and concern the right to respect for their correspondence or concern the 
legitimate interests of legal persons."



> An IP address cannot in any way, shape, or form be considered to be private
> information and I'm amazed there can be rants back and forth about this.
> 
> It's as simple as this -- you elect to visit Wikipedia, in turn your IP and
> your activity is stored.  This is no different than you calling me and I
> keep your phone number in my caller ID.  The key is that YOU initiated the
> contact and therefore open yourself up to sharing a bit of information as to
> what you were doing and where you were doing it from.
> 
> Make admins sign NDA's about log info?  Unbelievable.  There is NOTHING
> personally identifying there and I would be very interested for someone to
> demonstrate what malicious intent could be subscribed to someone reviewing
> one's activity in the logs.  "Oooooh, look, I got his IP, now I can get a
> bunch of credit cards in his name."  Umm....no.
> 
> Secondly, it's sort of saying that if you come over to my house I'm not
> allowed to tell anyone what you did or how long you were here because that
> would be personal information.  Again, hogwash.