WP29 working group sent a letter to ICANN in the end of last week, where it explained its position towards the future of WHOIS. WP29 consists of representatives of government agencies that regulate personal data protection issues in all member countries of the European Union. The working group got its name after the Article 29 of the EU’s 1995 Data Protection Directive. This law is a forerunner of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which was adopted by the European Parliament and will come into force in May next year.
In the letter WP29 members clearly express the fact that WHOIS system at the moment does not appear to meet the criteria of EU law”. ICANN’s contracts with registrars and registries require the publication of registrant’s data on WHOIS. However, representatives of WP29 point out that this violates even existing European laws and they have warned ICANN about it since 2003. According to the authors of the letter, creating a “layered” scheme of WHOIS can solve the problem. Registrants’ data will be hidden from individual users but will, for example, remain available for the law enforcement.
Previously, ICANN reported that registrars and registries that do not publish registrants’ data out of fear of been persecuted by the EU wouldn’t get sanctioned by ICANN, even though they violate their contracts with ICANN. It seems that ICANN management doesn’t have a final solution to the problem. However, Domain Incite informs that the corporation is planning to make the decision and bring it to the attention of all parties involved by the beginning of Christmas holidays (December 22nd).
