EU court allows website owners to store IP addresses

BRUSSELS: Website owners were free to store users’ internet addresses to prevent cyberattacks, the European Union’s top court said yesterday, rejecting a claim from a German privacy activist who sought to stop the practice.

Patrick Breyer, a member of Germany’s Pirate Party, had sought to stop the German government registering and storing his Internet Protocol address when he visited its web pages, arguing that citizens should have a right to surf the web anonymously.

Website owners routinely store users’ IP addresses to provide customised features, enable or disable access to content or to blacklist IP addresses involved in “denial of service” attacks against a website.

German law prevents website owners from keeping users’ data indefinitely unless the data is required for billing purposes, but the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the EU ruled yesterday that the prevention of cybercrime was a legitimate reason to store such data without users’ consent.

“Internet companies will still follow us around the web, collect information about our private interests and pass this information on,” Breyer said after the ruling.

“Now the EU has to close this unacceptable loophole in data privacy laws quickly.”

Joerg Hladjk, leader of a Brussels cybersecurity and data protection practice, hailed the outcome. – Reuters