The Governments’ Score on Human Rights? A Look at ICANN82

This is one of the first human rights impact assessment of the Government Advisory Committee at Internet Corporation for Names and Numbers.

Here is what GAC does: “The GAC constitutes the voice of Governments and Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) in ICANN’s multistakeholder structure. Created under the ICANN Bylaws, the GAC is an advisory committee to the ICANN Board. The GAC’s key role is to provide advice to ICANN on issues of public policy, and especially where there may be an interaction between ICANN’s activities or policies and national laws or international agreements.”

Every ICANN meeting, GAC issues a communique (which might contain advice to the board or not). We will use human rights scorecards to see how GAC is doing with regards to respecting human rights in its communiques.

Find the GAC Seattle Communique here: https://gac.icann.org/advice/communiques/ICANN82_Seattle_Communique_.pdf

Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) of the ICANN82 GAC Seattle Communiqué

1. Registration Data Access and Disclosure

• Potential Risk: Medium and High.
• Rights Affected:
  • Privacy (Article 12 UDHR; Article 17 ICCPR): The proposal to enhance access to WHOIS/Registration Data, particularly for law enforcement via the Urgent Requests mechanism and RDRS, raises concerns about surveillance, due process, and safeguards.
  • Freedom of Expression (Article 19 UDHR/ICCPR): Disclosure of registrant information could chill anonymous speech or activism online.
• Impact consideration:
  
  • GAC’s push for a 24-hour response timeframe (while mentioning even tighter deadlines), compromises the rights of registrants without clear safeguards, oversight, or recourse.
• Mitigation Considerations:
  • The GAC stresses parallel work on authentication for urgent requests, which could mitigate arbitrary access.

2. DNS Abuse

• Potential Impact: High
• Rights Affected:
  • Due Process & Fair Trial (Articles 8, 10 UDHR): Measures to mitigate DNS abuse may result in content restriction or domain suspension without transparent appeal mechanisms or damage reduction precautions.
• Impact Considerations:
  • Encouragement of AI-powered detection systems and actions against “bulk registrations” could lead to overblocking or discrimination against legitimate users, especially in politically sensitive contexts.

3. New gTLD Applicant Support Program

• Potential Impact: Positive.
• Rights Affected:
  • Equality and Non-discrimination (Article 2 UDHR): The GAC supports increased participation from underserved regions, potentially enhancing digital inclusion.
• Considerations:
  • The call for country-specific data, translated guiding materials, fee reductions (up to 85%), and fee refunds support equitable access.
  • Continued ICANN outreach to Global South applicants helps promote fair access to digital infrastructure.

4. Transparency and Accountability (Statements of Interest, Code of Conduct)

• Potential Impact: Positive.
• Rights Affected:
  • Right to Participate in Public Affairs (Article 21 UDHR): Ensuring stakeholders disclose affiliations enhances the integrity of multistakeholder processes.
• Considerations:
  • The GAC strongly supports swift and simple implementation of a clear SOI policy to prevent capture or covert lobbying.

5. The Conversation with the Board

• In their conversation with the Board GAC explains that they are concerned about the registration data policy and law enforcement access and intellectual property rights. No mention of data protection for the domain name registrant or other human rights that could be negatively affected and need to be balanced with the other two claims.
  • “We are especially concerned with the registration data and how it affects law enforcement and intellectual property rights and many other things.”

Summary

The ICANN82 GAC Communiqué reflects a strong emphasis on security and data accuracy, with potentially positive outcomes for digital inclusion and transparency. However, risks to privacy, expression, and due process—particularly in relation to DNS abuse mitigation and rapid data disclosure—require stronger procedural safeguards and human rights-based policies.