Minutes | Meeting of the Technical Committee of the Board (BTC) | 16 November 2023

Board Member and Liaison Attendees: Christian Kaufmann (Chair), Alan Barrett, Chris Buckridge, Nicolas Caballero, Edmon Chung, James Galvin, Wes Hardaker, and Patricio Poblete

Board Members with Apologies: Harald Alvestrand

ICANN Organization Attendees: Adiel Akplogan (VP, Technical Engagement), Franco Carrasco (Board Operations Manager), Jennifer Bryce (Project Manager), Wendy Profit (Board Operations Senior Manager), Matt Larson (VP, Research) and Sarah Zagha (Counsel)

Invited Guests: Matt Thomas (Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) Name Collision Analysis Project (NCAP) Working Party (WP) co-chair) - only present for agenda item no. 1

The following is a summary of discussions, actions taken, and actions identified:

1. Update Session with the Name Collision Analysis Project (NCAP) Discussion Group (DG) Admin Co-Chairs – The Committee received an update on the NCAP work from Matt Thomas, the NCAP Discussion Group Admin co-chair. It was noted that the NCAP Discussion Group had a productive meeting at ICANN78 and worked to define a new taxonomy of data collection methods. The Discussion Group is wrapping up Study 2 as quickly as possible, and is currently working with a technical writer, who continues to edit and add to the document based on the deliberations of the Discussion Group.
2. Approval of Pending Meeting Reports – There were no Preliminary Reports for the Committee to approve. The Preliminary Report for the 20 September 2023 Committee meeting had been previously approved by the Committee and posted online.

3. Action Item Review – The Chair established the agenda for the meeting. One action item was discussed and reviewed:

   • Action Item #1: ICANN org to inform the Committee of any timing considerations or dependency date for the New gTLD program's next round considering NCAP's work is complete. It was noted that as the NCAP Study 2 Report timeline may affect the implementation of the SubPro Final Report's outputs related to name collisions, internal discussions are currently underway to draft a communication to the NCAP DG (altering it to the New gTLD Program timeline and ensuring timely delivery of the NCAP Study 2 Report).
4. Introduction of New Members – The Chair welcomed Chris Buckridge as a new member of the Committee.
5. Discussion of BTC Activities and Re-Chartering  – The Chair led the discussion regarding feedback from the Board Governance Committee (BGC) on the Committee's proposed revisions to its Charter, which had been received by the Committee. After reviewing and discussing the BGC's revisions and comments, two additional editorial revisions by the Committee were noted for the BGC's consideration, and one clarifying question for the BGC's attention was flagged. The Committee unanimously voted to approve the BGC's revisions to the Committee Charter.
6. Review/Approval of RZERC002 Implementation Paper – OCTO (ICANN org) gave a short presentation on RZERC002: Recommendations Regarding Signing Root Zone Name Server Data. It was noted that RZERC002 contains two recommendations, the second of which is the subject of the RZERC002 Implementation Paper that was presented to the Committee for approval. Recommendation #2 of the RZERC002 Implementation Paper states that ICANN org should further explore the cost/benefit tradeoffs and risks of signed root name server data, and study if the risks of redirected query traffic outweigh the risks of increased operational complexity. After some discussion regarding the timing of this Implementation Paper, the Committee unanimously voted to send Recommendation #2 of the RZERC002 Implementation Paper to the ICANN Board for its consideration.

7. Debrief of ICANN78's Technical Coordination Session – The Committee recapped and discussed the key takeaways from the Technical Coordination Session held at ICANN78. The Committee further discussed their role and contribution within this space as the Board Technical Committee.

   • Action Item – The Chair to further discuss the Committee's role within the Technical Coordination space with the Chair of the ICANN Board.

8. Updates from Technical Liaisons – The Committee received an update from the following Board Technical Liaisons:

   • SSAC (James Galvin): The Committee was informed that a change in the SSAC leadership is approaching and a SSAC leadership transition meeting will be scheduled for December 2023. The Committee was also given an update on the SSAC's advice portfolio management process. The SSAC previously revisited older SSAC recommendations in order to create a life cycle of said recommendations and determine their status (and whether they can be closed). It was noted the SSAC has now come to consensus on the status of these recommendations, and most will be closed. Lastly, the Committee discussed how the name collision assessment will be conducted during the due diligence process, and the importance of discussing and understanding the data privacy considerations/risks associated with NCAP Study 2. The Committee flagged these two issues for further Committee discussion.
   • RSSAC (Wes Hardaker): It was noted that during IETF 118, the RSSAC Caucus meeting recently took place. During this meeting, the Security Incident Reporting Work Party was further discussed. It was also noted that the RSSAC has made significant progress in its work to explain how the DNS and Root Server System work to non-technical audiences (e.g. policymakers).
   • IETF (Harald Alvestrand): Not present for this discussion.

9. Any Other Business – Edmon Chung informed the Committee that the work of the Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) Expedited Policy Development Process (EPDP) is ongoing, and the recommendations from the Phase 1 Initial Report on the IDN EPDP (i.e. Phase 1 recommendations) are completed. The discussions around Phase 2 will be completed in December 2023 during a three-day face-to-face meeting. It was suggested that once the recommendations are completed, the Committee will discuss them more closely.

   • Action Item – The Committee to further discuss the Phase 1 and Phase 2 recommendations from the IDN EPDP work (when available) during upcoming Committee meetings.

The Chair called the meeting to a close.