Full Disclosure

[Roland Perry]

In article <4818181C.1080306@callnetuk.com>, PeteM <otcbn@callnetuk.com> 
writes
>> access to the ISP's logs.  It is also arguable that even static IP
>> addresses aren't personal data in the search engine's hands, because
>> the search engine may swear blind that it would never, ever run an IP
>> Whois lookup against the IP address and derive the necessary
>> information about the person to whom the IP address is allocated.
>
>But in general a WHOIS will only return the ISP who owns the address 
>block, not the individual subscriber's name, so the search engine can't 
>identify him. Unless it has other information linked to that IP address 
>to which it can cross-reference.

WHOIS is often not going to be helpful, alone, in identifying an 
individual. But in the anti-Phorm discussions over the last few weeks 
there have been numerous complaints about how individuals can be 
identified in other ways (and thereby apparently linked to a Phorm UID).

People often complain that "anonymising" things like health records down 
to a postcode is not sufficient to prevent some individuals being 
identified.

Most of the same arguments will apply to enough IP addresses.
-- 
Roland Perry