Swedish DPA reprimands anti-piracy group

The Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån made the news with yet another embarrassing incident. The Swedish data protection authority has forbidden the organisation to collect the IP-addresses of internet users engaging in file sharing. In an incident reported earlier in EDRI-gram, the group convinced the police to raid the offices of Bahnhof, the oldest and largest Swedish ISP, and confiscate 4 servers with unlawfully uploaded content. But Bahnhof in turn successfully accused the anti-piracy group of uploading the illegal material themselves.

The group used special software to record the IP-addresses of file swappers, the file name and the server through which the connection was made, and tried to link them to individuals by sending over 2.000 complaints a day to internet service providers. Thousands of Swedish internet users complained to the DPA about this practice. They found the DPA on their side. The group had no right as a private enterprise to collect the information in the first place, the DPA ruled.

Anti-piracy group broke Swedish data laws (10.06.2005)
http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1581&date=20050610&PHPSESSID=409885ab4d035d8e4aac16cfb03385c3

Decision Swedish DPA (in Swedish, 08.06.2005)
http://www.datainspektionen.se/pdf/beslut/antipiratbyran.pdf

EDRI-gram: First P2P prosecution case in Sweden (06.04.2005)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.7/p2p