[Public Comments] Call for Volunteers for NCSG Comment on Draft PTI FY21-24 Strategic Plan

[Mueller, Milton L]

Raphael:

I looked over the section of the report about “the evolving data privacy regulation landscape.” I note that it comes under the section devoted to “Maintain stakeholders’ trust that IANA is the proper home for enabling global interoperability through unique identifier coordination.”

I would offer the following language as a response (feel free to copy):

The evolving data privacy regulation landscape may have impacts on the level of transparency for the IANA registries, which may erode trust and accountability.

Response:
This purported risk is not well-defined. NCSG asks that PTI elaborate on it in a way that clarifies what risks it sees from “data privacy regulation” and how those risks have the potential to affect the IANA functions.

In our view, PTI’s involvement with global protocol, name and number coordination is not directly affected by privacy laws. IANA’s engagement with these functions do not involve personally identifiable information about natural persons. While it is true that IANA’s customers – specifically, TLD registries and RIRs – may be affected by data protection laws and regulations, this is generally a positive thing. In our view privacy protections actually enhance trust and accountability on the internet and do not erode it. For example, the reform of DNS Whois to make it compliant with GDPR makes it more difficult for the data to be abused and ensures that those who request disclosure of that data are accountable. Transparency is maintained but with appropriate safeguards.

There is, however, one sense in which “the evolving data privacy landscape” could affect stakeholders’ trust in PTI as the proper home for enabling global interoperability. Differences over data protection law among different national governments could fragment DNS or IP Address governance. This would indeed undermine reliance on a global coordination entity such as PTI.  If PTI is really concerned about jurisdictional fragmentation, it should add the following things to its strategic plan:

a)       Develop a clearer identification of this risk

b)      Support the efforts of ICANN’s EPDP to develop a globally applicable privacy and disclosure policy for registration data, and warn against efforts by certain stakeholders to engage in geographic differentiation of the policies.

c)       Warn against efforts by national legislative bodies to impose geographically distinct regulations on ICANN.

We look forward to further clarification of these points in the strategic plan.

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