Collecting IP Addresses Illegal in Sweden

enigmax
June 18, 2009
51
IPRED
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The Swedish Supreme Administrative Court has ruled that collecting and storing IP addresses is in violation of the Personal Data Act. But as some celebrate this ruling as the death of the notorious IPRED anti-piracy legislation, the truth is a little more sobering.

In June 2005, the Swedish Data Inspection Board – a public authority protecting individuals’ privacy in the information society – decided that the activities of the Swedish anti-piracy bureau (Antipiratbyrån) went against the Personal Data Act.

The act in question defines who is eligible to store information on individuals and the inspection board’s justification for the decision was that IP addresses can be tied to a specific person and that only government agencies may store that kind of information in criminal cases.

Since collecting IP numbers (and suing the owners) is the core business for Antipiratbyrån, they appealed the decision to the County Administrative Court which agreed with the inspection board’s stance. Antipiratbyrån appealed again, with the same result, and then once again. Today, the highest instance, the Supreme Administrative Court said it will not try the case which means the previous decision is upheld.

Antipiratbyrån’s method for chasing filesharers by logging and storing their IP addresses is thereby in violation of the Personal Data Act.

However, while some prematurely celebrated the result as the death of IPRED (and have since rewritten their article), the truth is a little more sobering.

On his blog, Swedish Pirate Party’s Rick Falkvinge writes that a paragraph in IPRED specifically says that you don’t need to be granted exception from the Personal Data Act in order to retrieve the names of IP address holders from ISPs.

8.2.11 Exception from 21 § Personal Data Act

In the copyright law, additions are made that means no specific exception from 21 § Personal Data Act is needed to handle personal information regarding immaterial rights breach, when handling such information is necessary in order to present a legal claim.

Translated: Antipiratbyrån can do as they please…

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Follow @torrentfreak

sliced up baby jebus

no!
Tony

It´s not true, they have changed the article.
http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

“Antipiratbyrån can do as they please…”
I wonder how much it would take to tell them to please go f**k themselves-and they do it.
BritSwedeGuy

“1 Jun 18, 2009 at 14:01 by First
First agian >.>”
What a wanker.
yar

so those fuckers are above the law?
Universal Turing Machine

i am impressed well done seeden now pleazse bring this to the eu with the pirate party.

HELL TO THE HASTERS AND THERE SURPORTERS.
a doorknob

I don’t get it — why did they appeal the decision if it doesn’t hamper them?
manky goes to bollywood

cool story bro :)
Anonymous

@6
I can only assume they appealed it because they did not know that it does not hamper them.
J

I thought you could only either appeal once or if there is grounds for an appeal not just that you want a second opinion.

And if one law says one thing and another says the exact opposite what one wins out?

-Jay
Anonymous

They appeal because laws depend on interpretation and any thing that could be interpreted in a different light for different purposes is a risk.
Number

Eleven.
what

Collecting of IP addresses in what manner? General linings like this affect most likely every service there is. No messaging service, online game or tracker works without a list of connected ip addreses. Or is this some bs-ruling in same category as “you may not dowload youtube videos”

In both “collecting ip addresses” and “downloading youtube videos”, you end up with something that wasn’t supposed to get on your harddrive from your memory.

What this ruling does is restrct things you are able to do a bit more. It gives no freedom. There are no winners.
Phoenix

who the hell are these trying to fool ?
Anonymous

@12 Jun 18, 2009 at 15:03 by what:

And that is why courts tend to look for precedents to now on what those laws should apply, and that is why the MAFIAA wanted a rule in their favor but that is a piece they didn’t get it although they do have others means, the real question is how much room(laws) are in their favor and how much is not the size of the legislation and quality of laws will define the total room to maneuver.
Anonymous

So one can say that collecting IPs for harvesting personal information with is illegal. But the bad guys (you know who) can still do it.

It’s now a “Personuppgift”, personal information, and thus has to be handled with care.

But it’s a movement in the right direction….
Aemony

@13:
I think the Personal Data Act only applies in criminal cases.

“The act in question defines who is eligible to store information on individuals [...] in criminal cases.”
wonderwhy-er

Hmmm. This exception sounds fishy… As far as I understand they ruled out that it is unlawful to collect that information without court allowance… So you can’t gather information yourself but ISP should and if court ordered should hand that information over. Collecting it in any other way is unlawful… At least in case of some types of usage.

Tough this exception sounds like you can do it without court allowance if some kind of law breach is investigated… Seems like anyone can do it then claiming that they were investigating something like that… Stupid…
Anonymous

@18 Jun 18, 2009 at 15:32 by wonderwhy-er:

I didn’t understand really what you said about the exception or if there is any.

But I feel like you that this whole business is a bit fishy and it seems more like people trying to reinterpret the laws and reconstruct them and this is why a lot of people say the MAFIAA is trying to rewrite the laws thru the legal system instead of the legislative body in the government.
Mr.Afghanistan

Can anyone please investigate and find out how much Antipiratbyrån is making every month ?

It’s really interesting and we have to find out how much Antipiratbyrån is making in a month or a year.

Government should keep eye on Antipiratbyrån bank accounts and review their incomes. they are really doing illegal business also, Government should take care of Antipiratbyrån somehow else they are growing very fast and keep sucking residence blood.

Please someone find out Antipiratbyrån income somehow :-/

Thanks.
Mr.Afghanistan

Can anyone please investigate and find out how much Antipiratbyrån is making every month ?

It’s really interesting and we have to find out how much Antipiratbyrån is making in a month or a year.

Government should keep eye on Antipiratbyrån bank accounts and review their incomes. they are really doing illegal business also, Government should take care of Antipiratbyrån somehow else they are growing very fast and keep s*cking residence blood.

Please someone find out Antipiratbyrån income somehow :-/

Thanks.
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Pedant

What’s more likely is that they’re running a pilot, “how bad would be backlash be if we DID block all the torrent sites, let’s find out with a limited test.”
Pedant

Wrong article, oops. =(
—

Considering how serious this is, I wish you went into more detail torrent freak.
VegetaFH1

Actually folks this works both ways, it STILL means the the IPRED are pretty screwed

take this into account, how will the IPRED gain ur IP address when there means of getting those IP’s are through other companies (which are not government agencies) therefore is illigal
Lets take for example, A swedish forum logs your IP address, with this you can effectively sue them for storing your ip
Same with said, “The Pirate Bay” and the IPRED get their IP address’s from that

If the company doesnt store the IP’s how are the IPRED suppose to get them?
and ISP’s are no longer allowed to store IP’s and personal data reguarding those IP’s, specific times and dates reguarding those IP’s an so on and so fourth (ISP’s are not government agencies)

It hasnt destroyed IPRED but it has made it increasingly hard or maybe even impossible to get information reguarding a specific or set of specific IP’s
Use-https-Dummy

its hard to work this out as their data protection act as per the EU treaty and the working partys working is in their language OC, nit english.

the EU working party enlish paper makes it pritty clear regarding IP addresses and their stance on that though.

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2009/wp159_en.pdf

“…
4. IP ADDRESSES
The Parliament and the Commission propose to introduce a new Recital (27a) on IP
addresses16.
The Working Party welcomes the wording proposed in the Commission’s Comments when it
makes specific reference to its work. However, the Working Party does not support the
proposal to make an explicit reference to this issue in a directive.
In this respect, it re-emphasises its earlier Opinion17 that unless the service provider “is in
a position to distinguish with absolute certainty that the data correspond to users that cannot
be identified, it will have to treat all IP information as personal data, to be on the safe side”.
IP addresses relate to identifiable persons in most cases. Identifiability means identifiable by
the access provider or by other means, with the help of additional identifiers such as cookies
or in interactions with internet services with which the data subject is identified explicitly or
implicitly.
Recital 26 of the Data Protection Directive clearly specifies that to determine if a person is
identifiable, “account should be taken of all the means likely reasonably to be used either by
the controller or by any other person to identify the said person”.
The definition of personal data in the Data Protection Directive refers to data ‘relating’ to a
person, and IP addresses are commonly used to distinguish between users to whom should be
applied a different treatment for example in the context of targeted advertisement serving or
profile creation…..
”

if what you outline above, and the implication from the Pirate party Rick Falkvinge translation is that

“IF, and ‘ONLY IF’ you ‘actually bring a court case’ against a person
using collected personal Ip address information and see it through to conclusion without dropping the court case, are you or in this “Antipiratbyrån” personally covered by this Swedish version of the EU “Personal Data Act” directive.

its without Rick Falkvinge giving us an english translation of his contect on this, im non the wiser really, as it may be just a bad translation out of context, perhaps he can post here in emglish ,and perhaps someone can find and post a link to the exact english translation for the Swedish version of the EU “Personal Data Act” directive.

thats assuming all EU countrys have to supply an original translation to the EU for all their legal interpritations of EU directives ?
Use-https-Dummy

doh my typing lets me down sorry

“its hard to work this out, as their countrys data protection act law, as per the EU treaty directives, and the working partys wording is in their language OC, not in english.

so its easy to not see the nuances or mis interprate the clause without a legal english translation.

however the EU working party english PDF paper, makes it pritty clear regarding were the whole EU legal stance stands regarding IP addresses and their thinking on that though.

put it simply, the EU directives say IPs are personal, and Every single county signing up to the EU directives etc are expected to write their country laws to exactly mirror this directives stance, end of story.

if they dont, then as seen in the UK, were the EU have and continue to take steps to bring the UK version of the EU data protection act to the attention on the EU court of justice for a ruling if full and inclusive answers do not follow soon,

the question is did the clause or any others breach the EU directives and will the EU commission also bring these matters to the EU courts attention for ruling and force corrections to bring it into line ?

http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2009/wp159_en.pdf
ngwoo

Time to amend the Personal Data Act with a no takeseys-backseys clause.
Sceptical

Err, companies have to store IP addresses if they run email lists and need to prove that a person signed up to their autoresponder.

Most blog software stores IP addresses for comments, and tracking systems all store IP addresses.
Use-https-Dummy

@28 “no takeseys-backseys clause.” ? forgive me but whats that mean exactly, translate please ;)

@29 sure , but the VERY BASIC thing your forgetting IS…

all the situations you point out ARE in effect legally binding contracts YOU as the IP owner, and the site application owner Freely enter into.

and thats fine, you own your IP rights, you can authorise the ISP or whoever to use YOUR data and IP propery as you please.

that right Does NOT and can NOT include 3rd partys, you have no idea are trying to use your IP property to track you
or use your IP property in way you have NOT authorised them to do so.

see the difference, they cant do do anything with anything that belongs to you without your knowlege and informed agreement, or some form of court order OC….
neostyle

@5 : One might say the same thing about pirates. Im surprised that sweden’s legal system isn’t giving them the tools they need to put thieves behind bars.

Awhile back, Congress did a report on countries which basically shit on copyright holders. If I was in charge, Sweden would be one of the first contestants to hit the paper. For a decade, they have fostered The Pirate Bay’s theft and helped it grow into the world’s biggest digitial crime syndicate. Actually, they are alot like the mafiia. Their crimes cost society millions if not billions and then when questioned about it they come up with snarky responce.

Somone in sweden should have realized “hold on, what these people are doing is nothing more than common theft” instead of “wel itz intranetz so dats okay den ^___^”

Grow a pair, sweden.
Use-https-Dummy

“Currently, British inventors are responsible for over half of all the new inventions in the World.
If ever I find my opinion to be that of the majority, I know my opinion is wrong. — Mark Twain”

neostyle did you forget all the US copyright infringments that have been made for the minor 300+ years your USA has existed against the likes of the Uk and the many EU countrys inventors copyright for US COMMERCIAL PROFIT.

you do understand the difference between a “non profit” end user, and “for commercial profit” infringment dont you @31 neostyle
even in your country ?

ones a tort common law offence.

the other ones a lock you up for a long time if you cant afford a top rated and highly payed lawyer firm to defend you in your country….
Pirates > RIAA

IPRED failed

Antipiratbyrå will soon follow, now we just need to make storing of IP addresses illegal in the US.
TerribleTony

Whilst the overall effect may be insignificant, it is still a victory! Arrr.
Anonymous

“Actually, they are alot like the mafiia.”

AHAHAHAAHAHA!!

The Pirate Bay is like the mafia? The PIRATE BAY is like the mafia?

Ah hah. Let me just say I stand here in awe as I eagerly await more nuggets of wisdom from you. Such as “the ocean is dry” and “the sun is cold”.

“Grow a pair, sweden.”

They did. Have you seen the parliamentry election results? Swedes stood up and said NO to Hollywood.
Fan of TF

Ok! the cat is out.
ExWaffler

As Stated Many Times Before, They Are Wasting Time And Money Fighting Piracy. It Would Probley Be Cheaper To Compete…
Anonymous

@neostyles

If you are not just an industry paid troll i would like to see your take on the arguments made on this site http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=171

as he does a much better job of explaining what i think than i can, maybe you might learn something ;)
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neostyles

My answer can be found here
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

?Copying others works is NOT a natural right. According to his own definition of “rights”, our ownConstitution would say that you can copy other people’s things, which couldn’t be further from the truth. The Berne convention (something which probably 2% of pirate are probabalyaware of) established that holding the EXCLUSIVE rights over a creative work is right and over 170 countries are bound by it.

Hence copyRIGHT. It’s in the name.

?Almost every creative work is automatically protected by copyright. It doesn’t have to be granted, which suggests, that contrary to his subjective ranting, that copyright is right, not a privilege that must be granted.

?The judge won’t care if you tell them that copyright is a “privelage” not a “right.” Its just semantics.

?Bottom line he seems to be trying to skirt around is that copyright is part of the law and if you break it, you will be stuck with the consequences.
manky goes to bollywood

cool story bro :)
Peter

“Swedish Pirate Party’s Rick Falkvinge writes that a paragraph in IPRED specifically says that you don’t need to be granted exception from the Personal Data Act in order to retrieve the names of IP address holders from ISPs.
Translated: Antipiratbyrån can do as they please…”

Even if that was the case it won’t help Antipiratbyrån. Swedish ISP’s are not government agencies and the law also applies to them so they are not supposed to have the information MAFIAA wants.
Several Swedish ISP’s are flat out refusing to store any traffic-information as they say the Personal Data Act specifically prohibits them from doing so without a court-order .
Turbis

Henrik Pontén is now celebrating in joy that he can still play cop.
Damn nutjob, telling he got warrents for peoples arrests when he has no rights to do so at all.
Dan

@42

Don’t you mean Pirate Pontén?
Entertane.com

Check out http://www.entertane.com for a new meta-search engine – faster, simpler – access to all your favorite torrent searches
frasnasicio

http://i00.co.uk/79
Zaphod

Uhhh, this has a very chilling effect…

What about private parties that have, and use anti-anti-p2p blocklists for use with peer guardian (or firewall rules) on their computers?

Does this make it illegal to have IP data for private use?
Use-https-Dummy

“Court has ruled that collecting and storing IP addresses is in violation of the Personal Data Act.”

@46 Zaphod
“Uhhh, this has a very chilling effect…

What about private parties that have, and use anti-anti-p2p blocklists for use with peer guardian (or firewall rules) on their computers?

Does this make it illegal to have IP data for private use?”

NOT in the least,how could it if you follow the ruling it cleary involved the USE of personal data.

the question you need to ask is “how do you equate personal data to a website IP” ?

you dont and cant is the answer, Now it may be that there are web sites (in the darknets of the comercial sector for profit businesses) that are collecting the IP addresses of peoples personal IPs and that would be covered by the data protection acts of the EU countrys OC, but not the other way around.

there is after all no “business data protection act” legislation, as they are not people, only people inside them hiding behind the corporate paper, that make their choices to spy, wiretap, collect and process your personal data for commercial profit etc.
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Celesto

illegal. i love swedish law.

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Collecting IP Addresses Illegal in Sweden

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