Via Michael Geist’s BNA’s Internet Law News – the European Commission’s Data Protection Working Party has released a working document on data protection issues related to intellectual property rights. One of the concerns raised in the report is the growing trend in DRM to track individual information:
The Working Party acknowledges the necessity of implementing measures to safeguard the rightful interests of holders of intellectual property rights against alleged fraud. At the same time, the Working Party (“WPâ€) has observed that some of these measures aimed at ensuring the effective protection of some copyright material against alleged unlawful exchange, taken at various levels by copyright holders, involve the processing of personal data of individuals. The first aspect the Working Party intends to address relates to the digital management of rights (“DRMsâ€) which is currently developing, insofar as DRMs provide for the identification and tracing of individuals accessing legally protected information (e.g., songs, software) on the Internet.