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IP Addresses and DPA

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Hi,

I wonder if anyone can help with the following question.

Can I ask in relation to ISPs are the IP addresses they issue to their customers and the logs of these assignments classed as personal data and as such protected under the data protection act?
 
actually, ld assume customer details would be called as private.. however if IPs were requested under the Digitial Economy Act its possible your IP would be released.. only problem with this is the system isnt good enough to pick out users who are sharing pirated software/media so the current systems prone to being wrong allot (tho the government dont seem to care)

as for your IP, technically it is private however unless you use a privacy service like proxies or VPNs any site you visit will be able to see it, some sites do keep a record of IPs as well, for example every post made here will likely have an IP attached to it which can be used to track spammers down, other sites retain information for similar reasons as well as stats generation etc.
 
The IP address itself is not technically considered "personal data", especially if your ISP issues one dynamically (i.e. changes every time you go online). There is however a case for Static IP's to be considered personal as you do hold a degree of personal ownership over those.

However, in order to work properly your IP address has to be publicly sharable online and as a result the IP itself is unlikely to be protected by the DPA. In really depends on the context within which you ask this question because, by itself, an IP is little more than a connection identifier that could potentially be linked to almost anybody or anything in the world but you don't know without further details.

The private access logs kept by ISPs would certainly be protected, albeit not from security forces and court orders.
 
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With regard to the private access logs which isps keep is their a time limit that the information is stored?

Would this be different for dynamic and static addresses.

While ip addresses may not be personal they are iin the hands of an isp and as such could be turned into personal information.
 
l believe the data retention policies that ISPs have to keep is somewhere between one and two years.. its the same with phone companies as well. this will cover ISPs who share dynamic IPs to their users as well as those on static, the law doesnt differentiate any difference between the two because logs must be kept, pretty sure ISPs were always keeping some logs but due to government legislation the time kept has changed.
 
So far as I'm aware it's 12 months, although they only identify the connection owner and not who may actually be using the connection; hence not personal information.
 
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