Recital 33

Where IP addresses, access numbers and related information are not requested for the sole purpose of identifying the user in a specific criminal investigation, they are generally requested to obtain more privacy-intrusive information, such as the contacts and whereabouts of the user. As such, they could serve to establish a comprehensive profile of an individual concerned, but at the same time they can be processed and analysed more easily than content data, as they are presented in a structured and standardised format. It is therefore essential that, in such situations, IP addresses, access numbers and related information not requested for the sole purpose of identifying the user in a specific criminal investigation, be treated as traffic data and requested under the same regime as content data, as defined in this Regulation.