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On October 25, 2025, the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) in the Generic Name Supporting Organization (GNSO) hosted a session at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Annual General Meeting, in Dublin, Eire – ‘DNS Security Without Sacrificing Rights: HRIA on RDRS‘
The Registrant Data Request Service (RDRS) is a pilot project — ICANN’s first effort, since WHOIS was disrupted by the GDPR — to centralize and standardize the triage of requests for non-public registration data. It does this by providing a unified form and routing system that directs such requests to participating (opt-in) registrars.
In August 2025, the GNSO Standing Committee delivered its report on the RDRS, which was then open for public comment, until just days prior to this meeting (October 20).
By creating a common pathway for registrars to receive requests, RDRS raises fundamental questions about how disclosure decisions are made: when does a requester’s “legitimate interest” outweigh the registrant’s right to privacy, and how should the fundamental rights balancing test be applied across jurisdictions? This session provided an initial human rights impact assessment of the system, asking what aspects of disclosure triage can be standardized in a rights-respecting way beyond the form itself. This session aimed to go beyond the report and situate the conversation on broader challenges, such as cases where abuse is real but not obvious outside certain linguistic or cultural contexts (e.g. phishing against banks that are household names in one market but obscure elsewhere); the uneven practices of registries and registrars regarding disclosure.
Subsequent to this meeting (October 30), ICANN issued an RDRS Policy Alignment Analysis, which is open for public comment until December 9.
SPEAKERS
Rafik Dannak – NCSG
Reg Levy – Tucows / RrSG
Alan Woods – Clean DNS
Sarah Wyld – Tucows / RrSG
Thomas Rickert – eco Association
Michele Neylon – Blacknight / RrSG
Michaela Shapiro – NCSG
Naoum Mengoudis – Hellenic Police
Manju Hatolkar – GNSO
Beth Marty – name.com / RrSG
Sebastien Ducos – GNSO RDRS Standing Committee
Moderator: Farzaneh Badiei – NCSG
#ICANN84 #RDRS #HumanRights
