Logo
ICANN
ICANN
Filtered Search

Are you sure you want to sign out from http://www.icann.org?

If you want to sign out from both http://www.icann.org and ICANN Account, click here.

ICANN Blogs

Read ICANN Blogs to stay informed of the latest policymaking activities, regional events, and more.

Evolving Data Privacy and Protection Regulations - UPDATE

13 July 2017
By Akram Atallah

Akram Atallah

Former President, Global Domains Division
and
Theresa Swinehart

Theresa Swinehart

SVP, Global Domains & Strategy

Theresa Swinehart is the Senior Vice President of Global Domains and Strategy. In this role, she works with the community, contracted parties, stakeholders, and policymakers to ensure broad and inclusive engagement, consensus-based policymaking through ICANN’s multistakeholder model, and effective, accountable policy implementation. Her responsibilities include policy implementation, review operation, and cross-functional strategic initiatives such as ICANN’s compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. An expert in global Internet governance, Theresa also serves as co-deputy to the President and CEO. Her extensive industry experience, including nearly 20 years as a key contributor to ICANN’s growth and development, gives her a valuable perspective on how ICANN organization can work efficiently and collaboratively to better serve the global Internet community.

Theresa rejoined ICANN after three years as Executive Director of Global Internet Policy at Verizon Communications, where she specialized in emerging issues as well as stakeholder and policy engagement. Prior to this, she served as ICANN’s Vice President of Global and Strategic Partnerships, leading a team responsible for partnership reform, global engagement and outreach, and the participation in international forums. Before ICANN, Theresa was Director of Global E-Commerce at MCI, where she was responsible for such issues as Internet service provider liability, data protection, and participation in Internet-related forums, including the formation of ICANN. 

Theresa has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of California, Davis, a graduate degree in international studies from the University of Vienna, Austria, and a juris doctorate from American University. She served on the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees and Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Committee. Theresa began her career in international human rights. She is fluent in German and is conversant in French.

In addition to the U.N. six languages, this content is also available in

null

We first shared information on the ICANN organization's activities relating to the data privacy and protection regulations prior to ICANN59 in a blog post titled "Dialogues on the Evolving Data Privacy and Protection Regulations." We'd like to take this opportunity to provide an update on developments that occurred during the meeting.

While in Johannesburg, the community had a series of discussions and sessions regarding data protection and privacy, including a session on "GDPR and its potential: looking for practical solutions." You can access the presentation and a transcript here. This session was a moderated discussion on the following topics:

  1. An introduction on the GDPR and its impact on businesses.
  2. How the GDPR affects registrants and services by registries and registrars, as well as the search for practical solutions.
  3. The potential impact on current ICANN-related work.

In addition to the community's sessions, and in relation to the dialogues with ICANN's contracted parties, an informal volunteer group was established. This group will assist in populating a matrix on the use of specific data fields in our contracts for the purposes of assessing the potential impact of the GDPR on ICANN's contracts with the registries and registrars.

This effort requires input from all pertinent parties, to ensure we are not missing critical information. To that end, members of the ad hoc group are being asked to provide their input by 15 July 2017, with the objective of putting this out for public review for 30 days shortly thereafter.

The eventual goal is to provide a comprehensive set of data including how it is used, in order to inform legal analysis, as well as to engage with data protection authorities for additional guidance or support.

The ICANN organization will continue to engage with the European community (including the European Union Article 29 Working Party), data protection agencies, and other pertinent stakeholders to gain a better understanding of the relevant aspects of GDPR and how it relates to ICANN's work and the organization's contracts with registries and registrars.

ICANN is committed to understanding the implications of evolving data protection and privacy regulations on areas within ICANN's remit. We appreciate that the GDPR may affect the ICANN organization and the domain name ecosystems in at least two areas, including personal data that participants in the domain name ecosystem collect, display, and process, including registries and registrars pursuant to ICANN contracts, and personal data that ICANN collects and processes for internal or external services.

The ICANN organization's work in this area does not replace existing policy development work, including that of the Registry Directory Service (RDS) group.

Lastly, we want to assure you that the ICANN organization will continue to work within our mission and scope and remain transparent as we work with each group to seek practical solutions, whether it affects the European realm or other jurisdictions and so that we can remain proactive where there is dialogue centered around data protection.

There will be more updates on this subject over the next few weeks and months, and we will continue to keep everyone apprised on the situation and what we're facilitating regarding GDPR. Meanwhile, we invite you to visit the new Data Protection/Privacy Issues landing page on ICANN.org

Authors

Akram Atallah

Former President, Global Domains Division

Akram Atallah

Former President, Global Domains Division
Theresa Swinehart

Theresa Swinehart

SVP, Global Domains & Strategy
Theresa Swinehart

Theresa Swinehart

SVP, Global Domains & Strategy

Theresa Swinehart is the Senior Vice President of Global Domains and Strategy. In this role, she works with the community, contracted parties, stakeholders, and policymakers to ensure broad and inclusive engagement, consensus-based policymaking through ICANN’s multistakeholder model, and effective, accountable policy implementation. Her responsibilities include policy implementation, review operation, and cross-functional strategic initiatives such as ICANN’s compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. An expert in global Internet governance, Theresa also serves as co-deputy to the President and CEO. Her extensive industry experience, including nearly 20 years as a key contributor to ICANN’s growth and development, gives her a valuable perspective on how ICANN organization can work efficiently and collaboratively to better serve the global Internet community.

Theresa rejoined ICANN after three years as Executive Director of Global Internet Policy at Verizon Communications, where she specialized in emerging issues as well as stakeholder and policy engagement. Prior to this, she served as ICANN’s Vice President of Global and Strategic Partnerships, leading a team responsible for partnership reform, global engagement and outreach, and the participation in international forums. Before ICANN, Theresa was Director of Global E-Commerce at MCI, where she was responsible for such issues as Internet service provider liability, data protection, and participation in Internet-related forums, including the formation of ICANN. 

Theresa has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of California, Davis, a graduate degree in international studies from the University of Vienna, Austria, and a juris doctorate from American University. She served on the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees and Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Committee. Theresa began her career in international human rights. She is fluent in German and is conversant in French.

You May Also Like