IP Addresses as PII

The cluster centers on debates about whether IP addresses constitute personally identifiable information (PII) or personal data under GDPR, with arguments varying on whether they identify individuals directly, indirectly, or only when combined with other data.

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Keywords

GUID DB IDFA US europa.eu UUID PHI SSN ID PII ip pii personal data ip addresses ip address data addresses personal gdpr address

Sample Comments

morelisp Feb 14, 2022 View on HN

An IP address is personal data, it’s only PII in combination with other data. Don’t collect the other data if you don’t need to.

jmickey Feb 6, 2018 View on HN

Mind you an IP address is personal data only if it identifies an individual. Same goes with any other information.

nicbou Apr 24, 2022 View on HN

But IPs are considered personal data by GDPR

edaemon May 18, 2018 View on HN

It doesn't. It says:> Any information related to a natural person or ‘Data Subject’, that can be used to directly or indirectly identify the person. It can be anything from a name, a photo, ... or a computer IP address.Emphasis mine.I said:> IPs don't count as long as you're collecting them for security purposes and don't have a way to identify a person using the IP.

reynard_le_faux Aug 21, 2018 View on HN

It's not personally identifiable data, so probably not.

pitaj Jan 8, 2019 View on HN

Are IP addresses personally identifiable information under GDPR?

three_seagrass Feb 29, 2020 View on HN

There's no PII or remote possibility of linking it back to the person, so no.

Sargos May 25, 2018 View on HN

You might want to actually read the GDPR. IP addresses are PII.

mimsee Feb 4, 2025 View on HN

Are IP addresses considered PII or not? I remember there being multiple conflicting conclusions on that

Radim Feb 16, 2018 View on HN

Actually, the law is defined quite broadly, not restricting itself to "name, IP, email".Have you considered how a combination of innocuous data points, such as "browser + city + top 3 popular sites" can make a person uniquely identifiable?Or any other of the billions of combinations of your browsing patterns or seemingly random daily activities. Your entropy fingerprint, if you will.Check out "differential privacy" to learn more [0].We've built a pr