GAC Communique and the problem with confidential gov requests

[farzaneh badii]

Dear all,

In the recent GAC communique, there is a paragraph that is concerning for
NCSG and what we advocated for, for many years.
When law enforcement (specifically GAC public safety group) advocated for
access to private sensitive information of all governments agencies around
the world, we expressed concerns. They then argued that while they cannot
deprive non-democratic countries law enforcement agencies from disclosure
of personal information of domain name registrants, what they can do is to
work on transparently reporting which law enforcement agency has requested
WHOIS domain name registrants data.

Unfortunately, in the latest communique this approach was discarded and
public safety went exactly the opposite. Here is what they discussed with
ICANN org:

"The PSWG also participated in the update to the GAC on domain name
registration data issues.* With regard to ICANN org’s proposed design of a
proof-of-concept WHOIS Disclosure System (soon to be renamed the
“Registration Data Request Service”), the PSWG noted the response from
ICANN org indicating that a lack of functionality to maintain the
confidentiality of requests for Law Enforcement Agencies and highlights
that this will likely lead to a reduced engagement from this significant
user group of the system.* The PSWG continued its outreach, holding
discussions with a number of constituent groups within ICANN and public
safety bodies." Link:
https://gac.icann.org/contentMigrated/icann76-cancun-communique

Issue is not limited to undemocratic countries. Law enforcement agencies
around the world need to be held accountable and asking for unconditional
confidentiality takes away the tool we need to hold them accountable and to
have an understanding how WHOIS data could be potentially abused.

What should we do next? Have a meeting with Public Safety Working Group? or
GAC?






Farzaneh
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-discuss/attachments/20230412/48694a1c/attachment.htm>