Should hosters or ISP’s just handover your personal data?

There are a lot of illegal things happening on the internet. That’s why the police and copyright organizations often ask hosters and ISP’s for personal data. But should a hoster or ISP just handover the wanted personal data?

There’s a difference between the civil and the criminal context. As far as there are criminal acts involved, hosters and ISP’s can only be forced to handover name and address details. The police and Department of Justice can demand this data on the basis of a so-called 126na-claim. This claim is derived from article 126na of the Criminal Procedure Code. This article, in short, states that everybody needs to answer to a request from the police.

Name and address details are often not enough for the police though. They also want telephone numbers, log in times and other data. The public prosecutor or even the delegated judge are the only ones who can force hosters and ISP’s to hand over this kind of information. The claim for more information needs to be written, the base of the claim needs to be in the claim and the wanted data should be mentioned.

The next step after handing over the wanted data is to remove the suspicious content.  If the ISP doesn’t want to do that, the delegated judge is the only one who can force the ISP to do so.

However a bill lies on the table since last year to change this. If the bill is adopted the public prosecutor can also force hosters and ISP’s to remove suspicious content. Opponents of the bill say this bill isn’t a good development. They think the public prosecutor is taking place in the judge’s seat.

The bill was manly drawn because some hosters and ISP’s don’t response to a Notice and Take down request (NTD-request).  An NTD-requests means that a client is being asked to remove the suspicious content. If he doesn’t remove it, the hosters and ISP’s are asked to judge the suspicious content and remove it if needed.  

Ccivil procedures about requests to hand over internet user data, usually concern violations of copyright. The lawyers of the claiming party will then approach the ISP. The ISP will then only handover name and address details if the suspicious client doesn’t respond to the rightsholders NTD-request and there is no personal data available. But this hardly ever happens. ISP’s often doubt if the content is unlawful. In a lot of cases it is the judge who must force hosters and ISP’s to handover the data in the end.

One can see that ISP’s protect their clients’ privacy. The police can claim the name and address details, but more information can only be claimed by the public prosecutor or delegated judge. In a civil procedure it is even harder to get the personal data of a suspicious person.

If the bill is adopted, ISP’s will more frequently have to hand over personal data to the public prosecutor. The public prosecutor will also have more instruments to force the ISP to remove suspicious content.

Source: Webwereld.nl

By: Karen Groen