WHOIS Task ForceATTENDEES: 1. Update and discuss activities from NZ, and recent council activity. Marilyn Cade asked to add to the agenda, unless it would be covered in the Wellington update, a discussion concerning the lack of the Board vote on national conflict issue arising from the GNSO Council minutes 18 August 2005. 1.1 Marilyn Cade reported on the Wellington activities: Suzanne Sene added that the GAC signaled to the GNSO Council that they were working on a concept paper that would evolve to a set of principles which could be shared with the WHOIS task force and the Council. There was a range of public policy concerns related to WHOIS data which should be considered by the Council as they considered the proposals coming from the WHOIS task force. This was a high priority issue for the GAC. which could provide the GNSO Council with what was needed to inform their deliberations and that the GAC could be consulted when the Council made decisions based on national policies and laws. Questioned whether the meeting between the GAC/ WHOIS task force with one or more data protection commissioners or any member of the article . 29 working party had been held? Or with any member or would be rescheduled, Suzanne Sene reported that it had been discussed during in the internal GAC meeting and it was agreed to shelve the concept of that workshop because of the lack of, not interest, but inability to produce government speakers. The goal of the workshops was to gain insight on the range of the entire policies, a single input by a single commissioner would not be sufficient. Instead the focus has been on developing the concept paper to convey to the GNSO Council the broad range of policy concerns governments have about the WHOIS data. Ken Stubbs commented, from a personal perspective, that the messages appeared to be mixed. On the one hand significant concerns about law enforcement issues were expressed and on the other hand broad public policy. Registries and Registrars were in general open to a methodology that ensured law enforcement agents the access they deemed necessary to effectively perform the functions they might need to have. If law enforcement agents' concerns were a straw man for Intellectual Property concerns, a broader agenda, then that would be where the issues would arise in the future. It was agreed that the topic be discussed directly with the Australian representative. 1.2 Recent GNSO Council meeting 12 April: Purpose Jordyn Buchanan stated that the GNSO Council approved formulation 1, (18 to 9. votes) with the original language the task force provided while formulation 2 was edited, the language was considered, but not accepted by the Council. The task force had requested Council for advice on how to proceed with the two formulations provided and the council vote would indicate the expectation was that the task force move forward on formulation 1. The Secretariat would circulate the draft minutes of the Council meeting on 12 April 2006 to the task force. Marilyn Cade noted that all task force members should read the discussion, including the comments by the GNSO Council chair who suggested that the definition was not cast in concrete and could be changed as the work progressed. 2. Inclusion of Avri Doria, Nominating Committee appointee from the Council Jordyn Buchanan welcomed Avri Doria to the task force but commented that people should be appointed as full participants of the task force and if there was any ambiguity in the ICANN bylaws General Counsel's advice should be sought on the issue. Marilyn Cade suggested that the task force seek Council's clarification. Avri Doria commented that in the mean time she would refrain from voting if there were any votes. It was agreed that the item concerning the lack of the Board vote on national conflict issue arising from the GNSO Council minutes 18 August 2005 be deferred to the next meeting. Marilyn Cade proposed requesting the staff to follow up by email on the status. Jordyn Buchanan commented, as indicated on the mailing list, that he had left Register.com and was no longer an ICANN policy participant from the provider side. Liz Williams commented with respect to a nominating committee appointee's participation in a task force that there had been a similar case in the pdp Feb 06 task force and that the nominating committee appointees were entitled to participate as full members of any task force. Further there was no limitation on the nominating committee members being chairs of any group or task force. There was no reason why a nominating committee appointee could not vote. Voting within task force's was to provide a general trend or view, rather than to bind the GNSO Council to take a particular decision. The most recent experience was with Maureen Cubberley, now chair of the pdp Feb 06 task force. The current issue was joining an existing group and there appeared to be no limitation on joining a group after it was formed. The most recent experience with the pdp Feb 06 task force was a good guide. Jordyn Buchanan referred to Bruce Tonkin's language: Liz Williams commented that although there had been co-chairs for the WHOIS task force in the past, there was no formal provision for co-chairs and suggested appointing a chair supported by people strongly willing to do the work. Marilyn Cade proposed taking up the question up with the legal counsel as the bylaws were often interpreted narrowly or broadly. Liz Williams commented that General Counsel's advice had already been sought and would report back to the group. Kathy Kleiman proposed that Jordyn Buchanan continue as chair. Marilyn Cade, seconded by Kathy Kleiman proposed a motion: Milton Mueller added a friendly amendment with a timeframe: The motion was unanimously accepted by voice vote Jordyn Buchanan added that the task force would continue with the other issues before it at the same time so if he did not continue, the task force would know how to proceed with them. Kathy Kleiman reported on the NCUC procedural proposal was a clarification of the discussion on the Terms of Reference 2, 2) If the TF finds that the data being collected under a Proposal exceeds the data needed, then the TF will list the data fields and set them aside for further evaluation. The Task Force will then further review the data fields to determine whether they serve a necessary business function aside from Whois. 3) The TF will make a recommendation regarding each data field it no longer considers necessary for the Whois database. The TF may recommend that the data field(s) continue to be collected from registrants for business purposes, but not included in Whois. The TF may recommend that the data no longer be required by ICANN for collection at all. 4) Based on its recommendations to Council, the TF will take the additional steps of reviewing the language of the Registrar and Registry Accreditation Agreements on these topics and recommending language changes consistent with the recommendations in #3. 5) The TF will document its findings in a report to Council to accompany whatever substantive proposal the TF agrees upon. Suzanne Sene commented that the legal rationale was based on EU law. The previous discussion indicated there were other countries with different approaches. Even in Europe, data protection was balanced with other public policy issues. The GAC was not focusing on privacy alone while this procedural proposal seemed to be. Marilyn Cade asked that whether saying that the focus was not on privacy alone, in the definition of public policy as in the WSIS, would consumer protection and law enforcement be included? Simon Sheard commented that the discussions with the data protection commissioner were purely for the purposes of .name. |
WHOIS Task Force teleconference minutes
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