ISP Wants EU Court Ruling on Identifying ‘Pirating’ Subscribers

[upnorth]

Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof has appealed a ruling that requires the company to hand over subscriber data of alleged pirates to the police. Bahnhof maintains that this goes against EU regulations since piracy is not a 'serious crime'. The provider is therefore requesting an opinion from the EU Court of Justice on the matter.

In recent years Internet provider Bahnhof has fought hard to protect the privacy of its subscribers. The company has been a major opponent of extensive data retention requirements, has launched a free VPN to its users, and vowed to protect subscribers from a looming copyright troll invasion.

The privacy-oriented ISP is doing everything in its power to prevent its Swedish customers from being exposed. It has even refused to hand over customer details in piracy cases when these requests are made by the police. This stance resulted in a lawsuit in which Bahnhof argued that piracy isn’t a serious enough offense to warrant invading the privacy of its customers. The ISP said that this is in line with European privacy regulations.

Law enforcement requests for piracy-related data are quite common in Sweden. Bahnhof previously showed that more than a quarter of all police request for subscriber data were for cases related to online file-sharing, trumping crimes such as grooming minors, forgery and fraud.

The ISP is vowing to fight this case to the bitter end. While it has no problem with law enforcement efforts in general, the company doesn’t want to hand over customer data without proper judicial review of a suspected crime.

 

[TairikuOkami]

Sweden is becoming the worst country in EU, talking about privacy and freedom of speech. It is even illegal to put certain words in quotations marks.
It is sad considering, that it was a homeland for "the pirate bay". Not trying to point the finger, but I wonder, what could be the cause of this.

 

[upnorth]

Bahnhof could almost be seen as one of that last standing. Will be very interesting to follow it's case.

It is even illegal to put certain words in quotations marks.

Really? Could you please explain more, sources?