Germany: Dynamic IP address litigant shot down
Jan Libbenga writes in The Register:
Holger Voss, who last month in court argued that dynamic IP addresses are irrelevant for bookkeeping and shouldn't be stored, has lost his case against German ISP T-Online.
According to the German Tele Services Data Protection and Telecommunications Act, ISPs are only allowed to store communications data for accounting purposes. Although Voss didn't deny that the storage of IP addresses has a purpose, he argued that it is irrelevant in his case: Voss has a flat-fee subscription. The IP address changes every time he establishes an internet connection.
Voss may have had a point here: ISP Lycos recently decided it will longer store dynamic IP addresses of its customers after a specialist on data privacy laws had threatened to sue the company.
However, a court in Darmstadt this week ruled that it is perfectly legal for a provider to store dynamic IP addresses for 80 days. The storage is necessary in case of abuse or when there is a network failure. The court confirmed that it is illegal to use the data for other purposes.
posted by Fergie @ 7/01/2005 06:12:00 AM
1 Comments:
The court ruled quite the opposite way, it stated that it is illegal to store assigned IP addresses for 80 days. The court only did not follow Voss requesting not so store login times and transmitted data volume as well.
German article: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/61293
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