ICANN: a crucial partnership with law enforcement agencies
ICANN is trialling a new mechanism to grant law enforcement agencies emergency access to non-public WHOIS data in situations involving an imminent threat to life, a risk of serious injury, a threat to critical infrastructure, or cases of child exploitation. This is by no means an abstract issue for the… organisation. This is because, partly as a result of the GDPR, data on domain name holders that was previously accessible is now sometimes withheld. As a result, certain investigations into abusive practices – such as the hosting of malware, command-and-control infrastructure or phishing campaigns – are encountering greater obstacles, and in some cases even dead ends, for investigators. ICANN, the international non-profit organisation that manages unique addresses on the internet, is therefore offering a fast-track process for requests deemed urgent.…