Swedish Court Says IP Numbers Privacy Protected 108
oh2 writes "The highest applicable Swedish court, Regeringsrätten, has ruled that IP numbers are protected (in Swedish) since they can be traced to individuals. This means that only government agencies are allowed to track and store IP addresses, leaving 'anti-piracy' advocates with no legal way to find possible copyright infringers." Update: 06/18 14:42 GMT by KD : The original linked article had been pulled due to factual errors and a new article has been posted (link replaced above). Here is a Google translation. The new article makes clear that the ruling does not affect the anti-piracy efforts of rights-holders.
Update: 06/18 15:08 GMT by KD : Behind the link below is a summary in English of the article sent in by the submitter, oh2.
Update: 06/18 15:08 GMT by KD : Behind the link below is a summary in English of the article sent in by the submitter, oh2.
This autumn Datainspektionen will start monitoring how the IPRED law is applied when it comes to disclosure of personal information. A recent verdict in the Regeringsrätten, Sweden's highest applicable court, has upheld Datainspektionens decision that IP addresses are to be considered personal information and therefore protected under law.
In 2005 Datainspektionen ruled that collecting and storing personal information online like copyright advocates were doing was a breach of the Swedish PUL, Personal information act, that regulates how and what kind of information that can be traced to a single individual that can be stored. The anti-piracy organizations were quickly granted an exemption though, that expired March 31st. Starting April 1st this year IPRED allows holders of copyright to apply to the courts for this information.
Datainspektionen will now monitor closely how any personal information acquired from the courts in this manner is used by copyright holders.
Re:No, sorry. (Score:4, Funny)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Administrative_Court_of_Sweden [wikipedia.org]
... [T]he court as an institution is independent of the Riksdag, and the government is not able to interfere with the decisions of the court.
That's the IPRED law out the window, then.
127.0.0.1.bork.bork.bork (Score:1, Funny)
I like that IP numbers are protected when they are in Swedish, but I doubt I can keep up the accent.
The privacy contradiction... (Score:3, Funny)
Your IP lease expired by DHCP server because the DHCP server violated privacy policy. You will be asked to go to the ISPs website to "opt-in" to have that data persistnant but - whoops - you have no IP to connect with...