New public consultation to facilitate access to registration data for authorized authorities

As part of the currently deliberation on the definition and detection of online abuse and the tools with which to combat it, we launched an initial consultation in June on the detection of registration data contrary to the Naming Policy from the moment of creation of the domain name (open until September 25th).

We now invite you to take part in a new public consultation aimed at gathering contributions from all stakeholders interested in improving the tools for combating abuse.

This new consultation concerns the plan to give the public authorities with a right of communication direct, secure access to the particulars of private individual domain name holders under the TLDs: .fr, .re (Réunion), .pm (Saint-Pierre and Miquelon), .tf (French Southern and Antarctic Lands), wf (Wallis and Futuna) and .yt (Mayotte).

As a reminder, access to particulars of private individual holders is under restricted publication by default. That means that the personal data of these holders are not published and consequently are not directly accessible via the Whois service.

The proposed change will allow authorised authorities to consult the domain name database directly and in real time to obtain information that is not publicly accessible.  It will no longer be necessary to contact Afnic for each request, as is currently the case.

The authorities making these requests to Afnic to date are: the gendarmerie, the police, the CNIL (French Data Protection Agency), the DGCCRF (General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control), the DGFiP (General Directorate of Public Finance), the Customs and the DDPP (Departmental Directorates for the Protection of Populations).

Access, in the form of direct, secured viewing of the registration data in the registry’s database that are not publicly accessible, will be by means of the RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol).

Only information on the contact holder associated with the domain name or NIC Handle requested will be disclosed. It will not be possible to gain access to the complete portfolio of a holder or to the entire database.

Afnic’s responsibility in granting this direct access is to continue to ensure the confidentiality of the personal particulars of holders while taking care to limit access and disclosure to actors that are duly empowered.

This project forms part of our overall approach to combating abuse, and more specifically our aim of facilitating the access of public authorities to domain name registration data in the context of their investigative powers for the repression of online abuse.

Contribute to the public consultation