The European Court of Justice will soon decide whether the IP address is personal data

Such a decision can greatly change the infrastructure on the Internet. With the most conservative approach, in addition to the pop-up window with a warning about collecting cookies, users may still have to agree to the collection of their personal data before they can look at the site. Or the storage of IP addresses by companies may be severely limited.

The EU Court is now considering the case at the request of the German Federal Court and will soon have to decide on it. The other day, the general lawyer presented his conclusion , in which he proposed to include the IP address to personal data. Such an opinion is not binding on the Court, but may influence its decision. In this case, the complaint was filed by a German citizen for storage on government sites of dynamic IP addresses after the user leaves the site. He requested that he be recognized as violating EU standards on the protection of personal data, in particular Directive 95/46 / EC.

Most of the predictions regarding a case decision favor the recognition of IP addresses as personal data.