Question on IP address distrubution
 

I've run a forum for a while now, and obviously, as you can imagine, we have banned members..We have a forum to keep the members up to date on who's banned or suspended..By joining the forum you agree to us being able to take your IP address and post it if you are banned. I have recently heard that this goes againgst the "Data Protection Act". Is this true, or can i carry on using my forum in the way I already do?

Re: Question on IP address distrubution
 

You really shouldn't be putting peoples full IP addresses on open forums as that just raises problems for you and the person whose IP address it is. It's like putting someones Name and address on a website :erm:

Re: Question on IP address distrubution
 

Are you sure the IPs you are posting are actually the IPs of the banned person. Many will be sophisticated enough to hide behind proxies and such like. Others will just be on dynamic IPs, which change from time to time, so an innocent then gets tarred with an IP that a suspect user previously had. There is no easy way past that.

As for the DPA, you have to be careful of anything that might be "personal data". Once could argue that, especially for anyone with a fixed IP, the IP can allow someone to be tracked. Of course if you are holding personal data, whoever owns your site may have to ensure they have registered with the data commisioner. For that reason it's best to only record user names, perhaps an email for contact, and that's about it.

Re: Question on IP address distrubution
 

that point was driven home by the recent RNT takeover of the forum - IP addresses were not released to the volunteers - and the fact was exploited by the incumbent mods ;)

Re: Question on IP address distrubution
 

I wouldnbt advocate posting IP addresses, that opens you to a whole can of legal worms, and not just from the DPA. You'd be on safer ground just posting a list of banned/suspended account names.

Also beware that if the posters know how they mask their IP in several ways, and that it could be a dynamically allocated dialup type IP and you'd then be tarring the next poor user of that IP with the same brush.

Re: Question on IP address distrubution
 

You are treading very dodgy ground if anyone complained. It is also pretty pointless telling members the ip address of banned people - how does it help them ? My advice is very simple - stop doing it. :)