Internet service providers (ISPs) zijn niet verplicht informatie over hun abonnees aan derden te verstrekken. Indien een rechthebbende bijvoorbeeld de persoonsgegevens van een bepaalde peer-to-peer gebruiker wenst te verkijgen van de ISP, is het verstrekken daarvan in strijd met Europese privacyregels. Dat schrijft de Artikel 29 Werkgroep in een recent rapport over privacy en intellectuele eigendom.
“Right holders base their research primarily on the establishment of facts available on-line, such as the displaying of copyright protected documents in peer-to-peer networks. Data such as date and time of possible infringement, nature of the protected document, as well as indirect identifiers such as pseudonyms of the author of the possible infringement, are available. The temptation is then great to complete this collection of personal information with additional details that could be found with the help of Internet service providers or in other databases, such as the Whois data base, which compiles information about domain name holders.
The Working Party insists on the legal restrictions applying to the re-use of personal information. The content of databases, be they public or not, can only be processed and further used for a purpose compatible with the one for which they were first collected. (…)
On the basis of the compatibility principle as well as in compliance with the confidentiality principle included in Directives 2002/58 and 95/46, data detained by ISPs processed for specific purposes including mainly the performance of a telecommunication service cannot be transferred to third parties such as right holders, except, in defined circumstances provided by law, to public law enforcement authorities.”
De Artikel 29 Werkgroep is een adviesorgaan van de Europese Commissie.
Lees hier het rapport.
