Identity, ICANN, and Public Meetings

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Identity, ICANN, and Public Meetings

By Bill Manning
March 29, 2006 Views: 11,159 Comments: 3

Ok, so I had a day in Wellington that was not busy with other things so I thought I’d wander over to the ICANN venue and sit in on the PUBLIC Forum… I saw friends on the walk over and we entered the venue, chatting about several different things. They pulled out their badges. I didn’t have one. They were admitted, I was denied entrance.

So I talked with one of the local hosts. It seems that ICANN is insistent on all participants executing a registration process where you provide data (name, affiliation, country) and they insist on taking your photograph.

My Photograph? Why? And it turns out that they do not insist on verification of identity, e.g. checking a passport. So I can give a nom’du gar and they will not blink but refusal to have a photograph taken is grounds to refuse registration.

I’ve seen ICANN badges with Bert on them this trip. For me, I’m protesting by listening to the ICANN Public meeting via the net. I’m not sure that registration should be a requirement for participation in a PUBLIC forum.

But I have been wrong before.

By Bill Manning

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Comments

Martin Hannigan – Apr 6, 2006 6:24 AM

I observed this repeatedly at the Vancouver ICANN meeting which I attended. This evening, on the ICANN ASO Address Council telephonic meeting bridge call, I made a motion to direct our Chair to object to this practice and I was surprised to find that most of my colleagues were unaware of any issue surrounding this and believed it to be a security precaution. I tabled the motion until the next ICANN ASO Address Council meeting (we are meeting at RIPE Istanbul for our semi- annual-in-person gathering) and will work to gather additional information to present to the Council for a vote and hopeful correspondence to ICANN then.

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Martin Hannigan – May 25, 2006 4:58 AM

Update:

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the specific meeting the Dr. Twomey stopped by to talk to the ASO AC, but in that meeting it was reported that he was dealing with this issue.

I am under the impression that we may see a change at the next ICANN meeting.

-M<

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