[anti-abuse-wg] What is Personal information?

On 20 Jan 2012, at 20:57, russ at consumer.net wrote:

> RIPE has collected personal information about me that led to them blacklisting my business from accessing the whois database.
> When i ask for disclosure of the information they collected about me the answer I received from RIPE NCC is:
> 
> "Unfortunately we cannot provide you with such information. It is
> considered to be confidential information and thus cannot be disclosed
> to the public."
> 
> Who considers it "confidential information" and for what reason?  
> I am asking for information collected about me and not "public" disclosure.  I though EU companies had to disclose the personal
> information they collected about people?  

They should release information about you, to you. However, they should not release to you information about other people. For example, if someone had filed a spam report, then RIPE could tell you that that had happened, but they should not release information that allows you to identify the reporter. When considering what to release to you, they should have regard to other information that you might have, or which might be publicly available. 

So, they certainly should not release the name and address of the reporter. They should also be careful about releasing information like email message-ids, which you might be able to use to identify the reporter.

> I guess they figure there is no much a foreigner can do so
> they are going to disregard these privacy laws?
> 
> So much for EU privacy protection!
> 
> Thank You
> 
> 

-- 
Ian Eiloart
Postmaster, University of Sussex
+44 (0) 1273 87-3148