According to the background information, Dazn would like to form a civil party to discover and punish those who have watched content on illegal streaming platforms. Even those who used a virtual private network, the now well-known VPNs, could be tracked down by the police.
Interview with Maria Pia Izzo
IT-forensic jurist consultant
A new chapter opens in the war against the piece. After the problems with the Piracy Shield, new strategies are being sought identify and punish those who view content without a regular subscription. Now it seems like Dazn would like to ask the Catania Prosecutor’s Office for the list of names, which following a major investigation dismantled a network of over 2,500 pirate channels. The platform wants to become a civil party in the criminal trial to obtain compensation and recover the economic damage suffered. Not only that, it could set a legal precedent dissuade users from watching matches broadcast on illegal platforms.
Most likely, those who have decided to view content without a regular subscription will have used a VPN to avoid being tracked. However, it is not certain that a virtual private network is sufficient. To better understand how a VPN works and in which cases the authorities can collect information and track the users who use it, we spoke with Maria Pia IzzoIT-forensic consultant jurist who works together with Eva Balzarotti in the Atlan66 study.
Let’s start from the basics, how does a VPN work?
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Let’s start by specifying that VPN is the acronym for Virtual Private Network, i.e. a technology designed to guarantee anonymous, secure and private digital connections. There VPN creates a private communication channel (tunnel). characterized by a high level of security as if it were a dedicated physical network but accessible like any internet network.
So are people who use a VPN really untraceable?
The data is transferred to encrypted mode and protected by a sort of casing that isolates the user from the rest of the network, hiding theIP address and allowing, for example, secure access to public Wi-Fi hotspots. A VPN works based on a series of complex processes which interact with each other to guarantee the user’s security and privacy by redirecting internet traffic to a remote server which is that of the provider chosen by the user.
This way all data is protected.
Let’s say that browsing via VPN passes through a secure data tunnel between the user’s device and the remote VPN server, established using advanced tunneling protocols (such as OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, etc) which define the “data encapsulation” rules ” to ensure protection from any external access. Data traveling via VPN they are encrypted and can only be accessed by those in possession of the decryption key. The VPN also masks the IP address coming out of the VPN server in order to preserve the anonymity of the online user and bypass any geographic restrictions.
The information is shared between your computer and your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Here’s what the provider can see?
Precisely because of the synergistic processes that characterize the functioning of a VPN, the ISP (internet service provider) is only able to see that the user is connecting to the internet through the use of a connection to the VPN server. Your ISP cannot track your online activity And not even the geographical position of the user browsing via VPN because it only detects the passage of encrypted data to a remote server.
Could the ISP share our search history, for example with advertisers?
If we don’t use a VPN, and therefore the data is intelligible, yes, as long as such data is still available on the servers of the provider who can retain them for a certain period of time according to the legislation on privacy and security. The sharing histories of research with advertisers, except in cases of sensational violations involving important social media platforms, generally depend on theacceptance of cookies on your browsers.
And what about with the police instead?
On order of the judicial authority which can also act through the police (such as the State Police) the ISP must ensure the delivery of everything relating to the internet browsing of the user who has been responsible for a computer crime or who vice versa has been the victim of one . Other data sharing with government agencies they must also be regulated by specific interventions of the legislator and/or government body concerned.
Can the police track a VPN?
As we were saying, the VPN guarantees user anonymity and data encryption unless secure browsing software has no security holes which can possibly be used by the police, authorized by the judicial authority, to access the user’s data traffic. However, for accessing data traffic via VPN the collaboration of the VPN provider is required which is not always and not in all countries of the world available in this sense, also due to the often very strict internal privacy policies of the provider and the regulations in force in the territory in which the service is provided regarding security and privacy.
What information can a VPN provider provide to the police?
If formally consulted and upon order of the judicial authority via the police, the provider must provide as much data as possible except for the possibility of objecting to internal privacy policies that do not allow him to access user data and any relevant legislation.
In what cases can the police ask to trace a VPN?
In all cases permitted by law for the purpose of prosecuting crimes such as online child pornography, human trafficking, religious terrorism, arms trafficking, etc etc.
Let’s take a recent example, Dazn could ask the Catania Prosecutor’s Office for the names of users who used the ‘piece’, are those who have used a VPN network safe?
It depends on the internal privacy and security policies and the regulations in force in the country territory of residence of the VPN provider. In any case theVPN was not created to allow users to commit crimes with impunity but was created to protect user data from possible malicious access.
Does Dazn have the right to ask for user names?
Abstractly yes, clearly the rules depend on the territorial jurisdiction in which the criminal proceedings are based but also on the procedural moment in which the request for the names of fraudulent users is made. In Italy, for example, this type of application is being proposed preliminary investigations that is, in that phase of the criminal trial subject to investigative secrecy cannot be accepted.
