[102075] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: EU Official: IP Is Personal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Thu Jan 24 17:55:32 2008
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
To: Lou Katz <lou@metron.com>
In-Reply-To: <20080124004455.GA64360@metron.com>
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 14:35:41 -0800
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
I'm sorry, but, I have a great deal of difficulty seeing how an IP can
be considered
personally identifying.
For example, in my home, I have static addresses. However, the number
of
different people using those addresses would, to me, imply that you
cannot
personally identify anyone based solely on the IP address they are using
within my network. Certainly, you cannot say that I initiated all of
the packets
which came from my addresses.
Another example would be a retail store that I work with as a SCUBA
Instructor.
They also have static IP addresses, but, I would not say that any of
the traffic
coming from the store is necessarily personally identifiable. Our
entire
staff (half a dozen instructors, a dozen or so divemasters and AIs, the
owner, and at least one other retail assistant) source traffic from
within
that network.
The larger the business, the less identifiable the addresses become,
generally.
However, even in these ultra-small examples, I don't feel that the
addresses
are, in themselves, personally identifying.
Owen
