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You might be able to trace an IP back to a user, but you're absolutely not guaranteed that that IP was only used by that particular user. Therefore even on a t
by zpeti 3y ago
You might be able to trace an IP back to a user, but you're absolutely not guaranteed that that IP was only used by that particular user.
Therefore even on a technical level this EU legal interpretation is insane, hundreds or thousands of people can potentially use the same IP address, how is that personal information then?
- msm_ 3y ago> Therefore even on a technical level this EU legal interpretation is insane, hundreds or thousands of people can potentially use the same IP address, how is that personal information then? ISP knows exactly who used IP at that point in time (they are even obliged by law to log them). Therefore IP from which a request was sent can be used to uniquely identify the device, with 100% certainty. Therefore it is (usually) a personal information.
- prepend 3y agoI don’t think the goal is to find a single IP for a crime or something. In that case, law enforcement just subpoenas and they’ll sort out the thousands using the IP to the actual person (possible with ISP participation). I don’t think it’s insane because the more common use is just to pattern match to identify the individuals. While lots of people may share, many do not (eg, everyone in my home shared an external IP but that is frequently just one person). Google can use this IP and browser traffic to separate out individuals (eg, I don’t watch YouTube and my kid never checks vanguard) to the level they convince advertisers that they know the individual. I expect this is why my kindergartner sees ads for car insurance.