EPIC - Top EU Legal Advisor Says IP Addresses are PII

The Advocate General, top advisor to the European Court of Justice, has issued an opinion today about Internet anonymity. He found that dynamic IP addresses are personal data subject to data protection law. The opinion concerns the case of German pirate party politician and privacy activist Patrick Breyer who is suing the German government over logging visits to government websites. "Generation Internet has a right to access information on-line just as unmonitored and without inhibition as our parents read the paper," says Breyer. The opinion is not legally binding but "is usually a good indication of how the court will eventually rule". EPIC has supported Internet anonymity since the 1990s and brought a similar challenge to the US government tracking of users of government website.