ICANN Comments to EDPB and content regulation

[Mueller, Milton L]

This is a great comment, Sam, why don’t NCSG officers just copy and paste them into an emailed letter to the CEO and Board?

From: NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU> On Behalf Of Sam Lanfranco
Sent: Friday, January 8, 2021 2:22 PM
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: ICANN Comments to EDPB and content regulation

As I understand the “ICANN org Comments on the Recommendations 01/2020 on Measures That Supplement Transfer Tools  to Ensure Compliance With  the  EU Level  of Protection of Personal Data”, they deal primarily with the transfer of data between regulatory jurisdictions and the processes necessary to meet a strict interpretation of the GDPR’s international data transfer requirements.

This has absolutely nothing to do with “…stopping and preventing the dissemination of illegal content and in order to avoid related societal harms.” (Comments: p. 2) except in so far as legitimate requests by legal authorities may be related to investigations around such matters. Given that such matters reside outside ICANN’s remit, ICANN org should be asked to expunge the phrase from its position on transfer tool compliance with the EU’s personal data protections.

Secondly, I have a couple of questions in areas that are not clear to me. The Comments say that the proposed SSAD model would introduce “…a centralized process for managing access requests and placing ICANN org in the middle of this process.” They go on to say “ICANN org or its designee(s) would manage a system for the intake of requests for data and would route these requests to the registrar or registry operator for a response.”

It is not clear if, in one way or another, ICANN would be the central clearing house for dealing with such requests, and it is not clear to whom “designee(s)” refers to.  My question is whether an ICANN-centric clearing house is the proper solution here, or whether a less centralized multilateral agreed upon set of principles (and processes) would better serve the intended objectives? Also, any transfer involves at least two national jurisdictions, so a rogue recipient state’s behavior could be blocked by a sending state in compliance with agreed principles and processes.

Lastly, is there an issue of who decides whether an inter-state request is legitimate?

Sam Lanfranco

From: NCSG-Discuss <NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU<mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>> On Behalf Of Stephanie Perrin
Sent: Friday, January 8, 2021 10:33 AM
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU<mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU>
Subject: Re: ICANN Comments to EDPB and content regulation

Thanks for raising this Farzi, i will confess that i was goofing off at Christmas and totally missed this letter.  I will raise it at the next EPDP meeting, and I think this ought to be raised at Council as well.  I should have raised it at the meeting yesterday of the small team looking at the other SSAD response (letter from the Board) even if it is a mite off topic there....this is a real  howler.
Thanks again!
Stephanie Perrin
Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 7, 2021, at 21:03, Raphael Beauregard-Lacroix <rbeauregardlacroix at gmail.com<mailto:rbeauregardlacroix at gmail.com>> wrote:

Thank you Farzaneh and Bruna. Could easily have flown under the radar and forgotten after Christmas. This is certainly an important matter. Looks typical in its language: putting various kinds of processing as matters of "necessity" without looking into purpose and context of such processing. ICANN is no "surveillance capitalist," but precisely if it sticks to its narrow mandate and to appropriately, narrowly designed processing, it will also steer clear of any form of trouble with (most) DPAs and their related statutes. Now, if it starts giving in to pressures by certain interests to stop the "social harm" of fake gucci bags (hmm...), well, we get that kind of letter, I suppose.

I'd be happy to help on the matter.

Have a nice day!

On Tue, Jan 5, 2021 at 10:27 AM Bruna Martins dos Santos <bruna.mrtns at gmail.com<mailto:bruna.mrtns at gmail.com>> wrote:
Thank you so much for raising this here Farz.  I will definitely mention this topic when I have my next interaction with Goran.

About the Content Moderation part, I agree with you that this topic might be absolutely out of the scope of the SSAD and ICANN as well. And this has been a point this community has raised before - more than just once and about Whois and CoMo. I also happen to agree that the definitions of Illegal content and content related to societal harm are rather open and problematic for the SSAD - or for many other discussions as well.

Should we work on a letter - to the Board, the EPDB or both - reviving our arguments about Whois and Content moderation and send it once again ? Are there any volunteers who would like help me with this ?

Best,
Bruna

On Tue, Jan 5, 2021 at 12:00 PM farzaneh badii <farzaneh.badii at gmail.com<mailto:farzaneh.badii at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hello all,

In my spare time, I got to read ICANN's letter dated 21 December 2020 to EDPB about compliance with GDPR.

https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/icann-org-comments-edpb-recs-21dec20-en.pdf<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.icann.org%2Fen%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2Ffiles%2Ficann-org-comments-edpb-recs-21dec20-en.pdf&data=04%7C01%7Cmilton%40GATECH.EDU%7C120fb15e918b4593cbcd08d8b40ab7f4%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C0%7C0%7C637457305705415204%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=OYD%2F%2FPaI8UbF69q4aee3gMjUtVvIxcLENBr%2Fzsp%2F%2BRQ%3D&reserved=0>

There was one alarming issue raised in this letter, and since the Internet community has been mentioned, I think we should at least ask Bruna to raise it with the CEO next time she talks to him. I know we haven't drafted other  important comments but I haven't followed EPDP so will leave that to the members.

P.2: "The SSAD is therefore instrumental for stopping and preventing the
dissemination of illegal content and in order to avoid related societal harms". This is alarming because the SSAD is serving ICANN's mission which has nothing to do with the regulation of illegal content and that is outside of its mission. I don't know what they mean by societal harm. We have many times told ICANN not to be careless when it comes to the limited function of WHOIS and relate it to content regulation. They said they wouldn't. But here they are definitely going into those territories.

There are other matters in the letter as well but I haven't had the time to read closely, for example they are talking about "thick WHOIS" not happening because of the strict international transfer. I am not sure where epdp is at with discussing thick whois. Can we even have it in place?


Best






Farzaneh


--
Bruna Martins dos Santos

Skype ID: bruna.martinsantos
@boomartins
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