Court: IP Addresses Are Not 'Personally Identifiable' Information

[FloatingFatMan]

an IP cannot identify a person but a computers address on the internet.

Not directly, but add a timestape and talk to the ISP that IP is allocated to, and pretty soon you'll have the name, address and pretty much anything else you want to know about the owner of the account that IP was in use by at the time.

Which is why, in the EU, IP addresses ARE considered private information and require a court order to access.

[Nathanael]

Lots of people have a dynamic IP address, so that point isnt valid.

Yes, but lots of people have a static one and that issue affects them - hence it's a problem. It's a smaller one then if it would affect 100% of the users, but 50% is still significant.

[SirEvan]

My first reaction was that it was a good ruling because an IP Address cannot determine who was the user at the computer. So in criminal cases, more evidence should be needed to demonstrate that the defendant was the user at the specified time and place.

However, when I think about it more, an IP Address is like any regular street address or email address. These things are considered personally identiftable information that could with other information be used to track individuals.

IP may not even be tied to a computer...look at the case of wireless....lets hypothetically say I leave my wireless unsecured, and someone uses it to download stuff. My public IP will be the one shown, even tho i didn't do it. If I ever get a letter from my ISP regarding downloading...all my computer equipment is moving to a safe location, except my laptop, and I'd unsecure my router....safe.