body: **Situation**: an individual in the EU has a web site available on Internet (= if you are on Internet, you can connect to that web site). The IP addresses of the connections to this web site are stored in the logs of the web server.
  
  
  **Question**: are such **public** IP addresses classified as "personal data" under EU law?
  
  
  Notes:
  
  
  * the web site owner **has no possibility, by themselves,** to link the public IP with an individual
  * the IP address can be linked to an individual by the ISP. This ISP is unrelated to the web site owner
  * there are numerous discussions about the fact that "an IP address is personal data". When digging into the documents, it becomes less clear because one of the conditions for the IP to be PII is, for the one who handles that IP, to have the *"legal means" of obtaining access to the information held by the ISP in order to identify the individual.* (see [here](https://www.whitecase.com/publications/alert/court-confirms-ip-addresses-are-personal-data-some-cases) or [here](http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf%3Bjsessionid=9ea7d2dc30d5104fab56cd7c48bea355f43196e1e7f2.e34KaxiLc3qMb40Rch0SaxyKax50?text=&docid=184668&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=1771402))
  
  
  
title: Is a public IP address classified as "personal data" for a third party under EU law?