California SSN and Encryption

[Markus Kuhn]

On Friday 26 Jul 2002 2:44 pm, Roland Perry wrote:
> Last time I looked, the Americans claim copyright because it has a (C),
> the Germans because it has "skill and judgement" and the Brits because
> it exists.

If you read the

  UK Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
  http://www.legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm

you will find that a serial or identity number, as well as other
automatically or systematically generated numbers (including
cryptographic keys and hash values) are clearly not covered by this
protection right. Copyright is limited to

  - original literary (including tables, data compilations,
    computer software), dramatic, musical or artistic works,

  - sound recordings, films, broadcasts or cable programmes, and

  - the typographical arrangement of published editions.

As there is copyright protection for tables and compilations, a selected
list of identity numbers, potentially annotated with other information,
would indeed be copyright protected. But not a single number by itself
which is not copied as part of a compilation. You would need additional
legislation to protect a person identity number from unauthorized use.

Markus
(IANAL)

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
Email: mkuhn at acm.org,  WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>