[Gnso-epdp-team] EPDP Phase 1, Rec 17.2 Study: Legal/Natural Differentiation

[Eleeza Agopian]

Dear EPDP team,

Please see the below note and attached study on legal/natural differentiation from Karen Lentz, Senior Director, Policy Research & Data Services.

Thank you,

Eleeza and Dan
ICANN org liaisons

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Dear EPDP Team,

Attached is the report on risks, costs, and feasibility of differentiation between legal and natural persons, per the EPDP Phase 1 recommendation 17.2.  Some key points are summarized below.

·         We were asked to respond to the Phase 1 recommendation 17.2 on evaluating the risks, costs, and feasibility of differentiating between legal and natural persons in registration data directory services.


·         The report is to help inform the policy deliberations, and does not provide policy recommendations.  As discussed with the EPDP Team, providing recommendations or normative assessments as to the differentiation between Legal and Natural persons was not in scope for the study.


·         The report reviews available analysis on this topic, including a review of academic literature and legal advice, as well as inputs from a questionnaire sent to the EPDP Team and ICANN Community with questions on differentiation.


·         The study uses a model that illustrates how risks, costs/benefits and feasibility are affected under different policy scenarios.  The aim is to demonstrate how changing a variable at the policy level affects the system as a whole.

·         The report finds that differentiation would, in effect, redistribute the risks and costs associated with processing registration data.

·         End-users of registration data noted a number of risks and costs from having access to fewer data records as a result of the data redaction associated with applicable laws and policies (e.g., decreased cybercrime and/or intellectual property enforcement capabilities).

·         The model presented illustrates how this redistribution of risks and costs might change under a policy requiring differentiation.  In such a scenario, contracted parties would bear many of the costs and risks associated with differentiation, such as the cost of devising and implementing an accurate and reliable method to differentiate, as well as the risk of legal liability should such a method fail to accurately differentiate.

·         Differentiation could pose a cost to natural person registrants, if it results in some proportion of natural person registrant data being published as a result of error or negligence.

·         The benefits of differentiation, as well as the impact of measures to mitigate the risks and costs of differentiation, may outweigh these risks and costs under a scenario in which differentiation is a policy requirement. It remains for the EPDP Team to determine the relative balance of these factors as they deliberate on the topic.

I understand the Phase 2 team is closing with its work plan and will not be addressing the differentiation issue in its Final Report. Nonetheless we wanted to share the information, which can also be used as a basis for continuing discussion, as the GNSO Council is discussing how to proceed with the priority 2 issues.

I also acknowledge that the report delivery is later than we hoped.  We appreciate the team’s interest in this and can support further discussion at the relevant phase, and when the Team has had an opportunity to review.

Best regards,
Karen

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Karen Lentz
Senior Director, Policy Research & Data Services
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

Mobile:  +1 310 895 3637
www.icann.org


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