Personal info VM collect

[bilbo]

I'm new to the forum so please excuse me if this question has already been asked...if so....I should get a pretty quick answer.

How long do VM keep the personal info they collect?

By info....I mean:

Extract taken from VM Privacy Statement:
Name, address, email, telephone number, payment details and service details
Information on how you use our website to help us develop and improve our website, including details of your domain name and Internet Protocol (IP) address, operating system, browser version, cookie details, how long you stayed on a page, the route you took to navigate through the pages and the website that you visited prior to accessing our site.
Other data, from time to time, to help us provide you with improved products and services, for example now and again we might ask you to fill in a questionnaire, just so you can let us know how we're doing.

Thanks.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by bilbo

I'm new to the forum so please excuse me if this question has already been asked...if so....I should get a pretty quick answer.

How long do VM keep the personal info they collect?

By info....I mean:

Extract taken from VM Privacy Statement:
Name, address, email, telephone number, payment details and service details
Information on how you use our website to help us develop and improve our website, including details of your domain name and Internet Protocol (IP) address, operating system, browser version, cookie details, how long you stayed on a page, the route you took to navigate through the pages and the website that you visited prior to accessing our site.
Other data, from time to time, to help us provide you with improved products and services, for example now and again we might ask you to fill in a questionnaire, just so you can let us know how we're doing.

Thanks.

To Cable Forum

Under the DPA they can keep it for as long as you are a customer, or for a small period of time after. They might keep data such as how many customers they have had in a region, but may not keep any data on them in that region if they have left VM.

The technical stuff is a lot less longer, for example a cookie may last minutes, hours, days depending on what its used for. The technical stuff is usually standard on all websites. E.g. Your post here will contain your IP address and date time you visited, and the same information can also be collected by the VM website, except VM could (if they wanted to) identify you based on your VM IP address when you visited a VM website page .

[eth01]

Originally Posted by Toto

To Cable Forum

Under the DPA they can keep it for as long as you are a customer, or for a small period of time after. They might keep data such as how many customers they have had in a region, but may not keep any data on them in that region if they have left VM.

The technical stuff is a lot less longer, for example a cookie may last minutes, hours, days depending on what its used for. The technical stuff is usually standard on all websites. E.g. Your post here will contain your IP address and date time you visited, and the same information can also be collected by the VM website, except VM could (if they wanted to) identify you based on your VM IP address when you visited a VM website page .

IP addresses are hardly a personal thing. They're in the public domain.

[Toto]

IP addresses are classed as PII (Personally identifiable Information). To your ISP they can identify an account holder, for diagnostic or legal requirements.

[bilbo]

Thanks for the info. guys.

I understand the bit about VM keeping personal data for as long as you are a customer (things like name, age, address etc.)..that kinda makes sense.....but what about the history of your web browsing and so on. It's like you said, Toto, VM will record my IP when I visit this site and all the other info. related to my browsing this forum. Surely they don't keep every piece of history about every individual customer as long as they are customers. That would mean a serious amount of storage space for all that data. I thought that this type of info. (web browsing) would be kept for a limited period of time, say 7 days, and then replaced with new info.

Another thing about IP addresses: VM use dynamic IP addresses for household users. Therefore, how can VM check my history if my IP address changes from time to time. It's like my IP address can be different next week and someone else will be using the address I have used this week. Can VM actually pinpoint a customers exact history for example: customer Joe Bloggs was using IP address ***.***.**.** on such a day between the hours of 10:30am to 11:50am?

The more I examine the meaning of IP the more "Big Brotherish" it sounds......apart from it being interesting aswell.

[Nilrem]

Originally Posted by bilbo

Another thing about IP addresses: VM use dynamic IP addresses for household users. Therefore, how can VM check my history if my IP address changes from time to time. It's like my IP address can be different next week and someone else will be using the address I have used this week. Can VM actually pinpoint a customers exact history for example: customer Joe Bloggs was using IP address ***.***.**.** on such a day between the hours of 10:30am to 11:50am?

The more I examine the meaning of IP the more "Big Brotherish" it sounds......apart from it being interesting aswell.

I suspect so, very easily if there is a requirement.
I'd guess it's kept for X months linked to the modem mac address/account, as they need it if they are asked for it by the police (it wouldn't take much space even for the millions of users they have, probably only a few megs of data a day for ip/account linking depending on the exact system used).

[bilbo]

What is a modem mac address?

Originally Posted by bilbo

What is a modem mac address?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address

[piggy]

Originally Posted by eth01

IP addresses are hardly a personal thing. They're in the public domain.

this has got to be a wind-up

[Raistlin]

An IP address on its own means nothing.

It's only when it's linked to certain other information, that only your ISP have, that it is PII.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by bilbo

Thanks for the info. guys.

I understand the bit about VM keeping personal data for as long as you are a customer (things like name, age, address etc.)..that kinda makes sense.....but what about the history of your web browsing and so on. It's like you said, Toto, VM will record my IP when I visit this site and all the other info. related to my browsing this forum. Surely they don't keep every piece of history about every individual customer as long as they are customers. That would mean a serious amount of storage space for all that data. I thought that this type of info. (web browsing) would be kept for a limited period of time, say 7 days, and then replaced with new info.

Another thing about IP addresses: VM use dynamic IP addresses for household users. Therefore, how can VM check my history if my IP address changes from time to time. It's like my IP address can be different next week and someone else will be using the address I have used this week. Can VM actually pinpoint a customers exact history for example: customer Joe Bloggs was using IP address ***.***.**.** on such a day between the hours of 10:30am to 11:50am?

The more I examine the meaning of IP the more "Big Brotherish" it sounds......apart from it being interesting aswell.

Just to clarify one point, I didn't mean to imply that VM record your IP when you visit this, or any other site, the sites servers do that.

VM don't have a legal requirement to store your browsing habits at the moment, and therefore probably don't given the logistics involved.

As stated in other posts they can record your IP allocation and store it, as can all ISP's for their customer base.

Sorry if my original post was confusing, I do have a habit of doing that.

---------- Post added at 21:44 ---------- Previous post was at 21:41 ----------

Originally Posted by Rob M

An IP address on its own means nothing.

It's only when it's linked to certain other information, that only your ISP have, that it is PII.

Whilst technically true, this also depends on what the owning network records in its IP registrars DB. My IP address for example points to a pool owned by Virgin Media, and is classed as dynamic, however some subnets of addresses can be assigned to a business.

Your point though is valid, even if it does identify a business, more information would be required to pin it to a user.

[bilbo]

Thanks for the update Toto.....I'm learning alot from you.

Can I be a pain and just dig a little deaper in this area of what VM can or can not do. I will start with what has prompted this line of enquiry and it has to do with the issues regarding downloading music from Limewire.

I won't go in to any details but needless to say I am now fully aware of the dangers of p2p in light of my investigations in to what an IP address does.

Can we theorise for one minute? Now I have to warn you that I am going to take this question to the extreme and it may seem that I am being paranoid. Lets say, however unlikely and stupid this may sound, but let us say that Limewire were investigated. The investigation takes a look at the site servers and hey presto they have all the logs of all the IP addresses for the last 6 months along with dates and times etc.. The investigation then subpoena VM and present them with IP addreses, dates and times. Is it possible, at this stage, for VM to be able to confirm that the IP address in question was being used on a given date at a given time by a specific VM customer? Now I did say I was going to be extreme and please ignore the fact that it may sound like a stupid question but could VM be that specific?

And a final question that may make all of this worry unecessary. I will be leaving VM at the end of September because unfortunately I live in an area where VM do not offer digital TV and have no plans to upgrade. I have been hanging on for 18 months waiting and waiting to see if they bring the wonders of digital TV to my area but alas they have not. Therefore I am switching to another provider for phone, internet and TV.

What will happen to me as an ex-customer of VM? Do they hold my records for a fixed period of time and then erase me from their records? Or do they hold my details and history indefinitely?

[Toto]

Originally Posted by bilbo

Is it possible, at this stage, for VM to be able to confirm that the IP address in question was being used on a given date at a given time by a specific VM customer? Now I did say I was going to be extreme and please ignore the fact that it may sound like a stupid question but could VM be that specific?

Yes, all ISP's keep that kind of data - IP allocation based on Date/Time-for a specific period. How long is up to each network, there is nothing in law in the UK as far as I am aware that tells then to keep it for a specific time or for a minimum period, yet. It all comes down to collection and storage I suppose.

And a final question that may make all of this worry unecessary. I will be leaving VM at the end of September because unfortunately I live in an area where VM do not offer digital TV and have no plans to upgrade. I have been hanging on for 18 months waiting and waiting to see if they bring the wonders of digital TV to my area but alas they have not. Therefore I am switching to another provider for phone, internet and TV.

What will happen to me as an ex-customer of VM? Do they hold my records for a fixed period of time and then erase me from their records? Or do they hold my details and history indefinitely?

Now I honestly don't know the answer to that. I suppose for the purposes of the DPA that data at some point would have to become redundant if you were no longer a customer and after a reasonable period of time. In terms of of a RIPA request (police or other body covered under the act) if you had moved and assuming you hadn't supplied a forwarding address the ISP could only give out the address you had the services in.

It really comes down to how long an ISP can save that kind of data, and of course make provisions to preserve the data also. There are EU directives apparently coming into play that I believe forces an ISP to keep the data for a minimum 12 month period, I'll see what I can fish out.

I'm sure though there is nothing to be worried about.

[Florence]

While I was with VM my ip number resolved to the ip pool for VM but also added in customer number and the UBR details like swansea etc.

cpc1-norw*-*-*-cust***.pete.cable.ntl.com

Something like that above.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Florence

While I was with VM my ip number resolved to the ip pool for VM but also added in customer number and the UBR details like swansea etc.



Something like that above.

Yeh, useful diagnostic info, but as far as it gets really.