[bc-gnso] ICANN Technical Study Group on Access to Non-Public Registration Data Begins Work

[Steve DelBianco]

At the Barcelona meeting, recall that the BC and others encouraged ICANN to explore a Unified Access Model for Whois, where ICANN Org accepts most of the legal risk and can thereby require registrars to respond to accredited queries.

During our CSG exchange with the board in Barcelona, Goran said he’s create a Technical Study Group.

This week, ICANN announced<https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2018-12-14-en> the creation of that group:

LOS ANGELES – 14 December 2018 -- The Technical Study Group on Access to Non-Public Registration Data (TSG-RD) began its work this week. The group is made up of 10 invited members with expertise in the Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP), distributed authentication/authorization technologies, systems architecture, design-thinking and other relevant topics. The group is coordinated by Ram Mohan<https://www.icann.org/profiles/>, the CTO of Afilias and the former Security and Stability Advisory Committee liaison to the ICANN Board of Directors. The group will explore technical solutions for providing third parties access to non-public data via RDAP.

The particular technical implementation approach the group will study was described during a data protection/privacy update webinar<https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/data-protection-meetings-2017-12-08-en> held 8 October. That possible approach would place ICANN in the position of determining whether a third-party's query for non-public registration data ought to be approved to proceed. If approved, ICANN would ask the appropriate registry or registrar to provide the requested data to ICANN, which in turn would provide it to the third party. If ICANN does not approve the request, the query would be denied. This group's work will not interfere with community efforts to develop an RDAP profile prior to deployment of the protocol. In addition, this effort does not replace the community's policy development process. ICANN is exploring this approach to determine whether it would diminish the legal liability of contracted parties, who would provide access to non-public registration data.

The TSG-RD's discussions anticipate discussing the following key issues: assessment of available tools and protocols; authentication/authorization; data transport/storage and audit; access control protocol; performance requirements; transparency and assignment of responsibility; error conditions; costs; maintenance and evolution; and governance.

The group will be supported with technical input from John Crain, ICANN Chief Security, Stability and Resiliency Officer, and Francisco Arias, Senior Director of Technical Services for the Global Domains Divisions (GDD). The invited members of the TSG-RD are:
·         Benedict Addis
·         Gavin Brown
·         Jorge Cano
·         Steve Crocker
·         Scott Hollenbeck
·         Jody Kolker
·         Murray Kucherawy
·         Andy Newton
·         Tomofumi Okubo

More information about the group is available here<https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/tsg-access-non-public-registration-data-2018-12-14-en>. You can follow the TSG-RD group's discussions on their publicly archived mailing list<https://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/tsg-access-rd>.

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