2022-06-06 SOI Taskforce - Meeting #09

Notes/ Action Items

HOMEWORK/ACTION ITEMS:

1.    Re: Draft Recommendations at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZrLZ5NSiSN35MeCYhxqQUP4G1v-Rzsty/edit [docs.google.com], TF members to review the Draft Recommendations with their respective groups and post comments/suggestions in the Google document for consideration by the TF prior to the next meeting on 11 July.
2.    Staff to 1) request a review of the current SOI and draft recommendations by ICANN org Legal, including questions relating to their public availability, annual review suggestions and enforcement for accuracy, and data retention; and 2) bring any issues back to the TF to review.
3.    Staff to review the GNSO Operating Procedures to suggest how the current procedures may be modified to reflect the draft recommendations and the feasibility of implementation on the current SOI platform.
4.    Staff to schedule the next TF meeting for Monday, 11 July at 20.00 UTC.

Notes:

1. Welcome

-    Hope to finalize the review of the draft recommendations, particularly splitting up the SOI into two parts.
-    Continue with the discussion of enforcement and escalation procedures.

2. Draft recommendations (see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZrLZ5NSiSN35MeCYhxqQUP4G1v-Rzsty/edit [docs.google.com])

a. Any remaining concerns / issues?

-    What we have aligns with what we’ve discussed to date.
-    Hope we can proceed to have TF members check with their respective groups.
-    Next steps would be considering how to amend the current procedures to reflect the revisions.
-    Change from last meeting, added: “f. Please identify any association memberships that your employer(s) holds, if applicable;”  -- any concerns?
o    For a large company this could be a hundred or more, how can we narrow this focus?  Could we provide some guidance?  Could provide use cases as examples.
o    Talked about people who may represent different types of members, so there could be a diversity of interests in one organization.
o    Trying to determine how to limit this answer to relevant associations.
o    Maybe when this is finalized we could have TF members complete the questions as a test run with a current WG and see what instructions might be helpful, or how this language could be tailored.
o    Interested in what “if applicable” means and for a big company you might not even know.
o    Change to: “Please identify other ICANN activities in which your employer(s) participates, if applicable;”
o    Still a little worried that with a large company you may not know.  Could say, “to the best of your knowledge”.
o    Need to provide guidance for each of these including examples.
-    See also “i. Please identify your declared country of primary residence (e.g., country to which you pay taxes):”  Comments: 
o    From Outreach Survey: "The language in #2 "Please identify your declared country of primary residence (which may be the country to which you pay taxes)."differs from that in the ICANN Bylaws. It should be modified to make it consistent."
o    Staff support team: The ICANN Bylaws include the following in relation to the designation of Board Seats and required geographic diversity: "For purposes of this Section 7.2(b), if any candidate for director maintains citizenship of more than one country, or has been domiciled for more than five years in a country of which the candidate does not maintain citizenship ("Domicile"), that candidate may be deemed to be from either country and must select in his or her Statement of Interest the country of citizenship or Domicile that he or she wants the Nominating Committee to use for Diversity Calculation purposes." - TF to consider if this information is requested for the same reason (geographic diversity) or whether there are other factors, such as for example, time zone location.
o    Is there a reason to change this to match the Bylaws?
o    Americans have to pay taxes wherever they live.
o    Are we violating any GDPR regulations with these questions? Staff have requested a review by ICANN org Legal, although there is a disclaimer to which a respondent must agree.  We’ll come back to the TF if further disclaimers are needed.
o    Decide whether this information needs to be known or doesn’t belong on a public wiki page.  Think the GNSO Secretariat asks this as a separate question to ascertain time zone, but may also be important information for the sake of determining diversity.
o    Time zone will always be collected, but does it need to be publicly viewable?
o    BC for example has a requirement for both councilors to not both be from north America, so this [current language] doesn’t seem to be an issue.
o    Could also ask Legal: When we look at the SOI platform today on the community wiki, all SOIs can be viewed by anyone (no login required).  Should there be some level of authentication for these to be viewed?  Information is useful to research the interests of WG members at a given point in time.
o    The barrier to create a login for the wiki is not a high one, so that could be an added criteria to view SOIs.

b. Confirm next steps

-    Consider the open items resolved for now.  Circle back when response received from an ICANN Legal review.
-    Develop use cases once we have a complete picture.

ACTION ITEM: Staff to request a review of the current SOI and draft recommendations by ICANN org Legal, including questions relating to their public availability, annual review suggestions and enforcement for accuracy, and data retention; bring any issues back to the TF to review.

3. Enforcement and escalation procedures

a. Review existing procedures (see Annex A, section 6.4 & 6.5 - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-mVupfkJF3e6S53oJb13XtyrqNuSt_8m/edit [docs.google.com])

-    There are already procedures in place to ensure accuracy and provide for enforcement.
-    Outreach survey emphasized the need for a reminder.
-    One suggestion was to have an annual reminder to request a review of information and update as necessary, if no response a disclaimer would be added to the SOI to indicate that it may no longer be up-to-date. Would be kind of frozen – you could still see it but it would have a disclaimer.  Someone could still come back to reactivate it.
-    Enforcement requirements could be reiterated as part of the reminder.

b. Consider possible updates / additions (see also input provided through survey)

Suggested draft recommendation: 

Enforcement and Escalation

The GNSO Statement of Interest Task Force recommends that:

1.    An annual reminder is sent to those with a GNSO SOI on file to request the SOI holder to review their information and update it as necessary. If no response is received, or the SOI holder confirms they are no longer actively engaged in GNSO activities, a disclaimer, or similar, is added to the SOI in question to clearly mark that the SOI is ‘frozen’ and may no longer be up to date. Should the SOI holder at a future point in time decide that they want to ‘unfreeze’ their SOI, instructions should be made available for how to do this.
2.    This annual reminder will also include information about the applicable enforcement and escalation requirements. 

Discussion:
-    If an SOI is "frozen”, it should also be redacted from the GNSO/ICANN website, or wherever it is published.
-    If redacted then how does someone look back to get historical context?
-    Someone who leaves probably wants there information to be deleted.  Ask this question to ICANN Legal – consider what is reasonable to retain.  Or does it turn into something that is kept but only available on request, or only limited information is retained.
-    Should be consistent with ICANN’s policy for retaining information.

Same ACTION ITEM as above: ACTION ITEM: Staff to 1) request a review of the current SOI and draft recommendations by ICANN org Legal, including questions relating to their public availability, annual review suggestions and enforcement for accuracy, and data retention; and 2) bring any issues back to the TF to review.

ACTION ITEM: Staff to review the GNSO Operating Procedures to suggest how the current procedures may be modified to reflect the draft recommendations and the feasibility of implementation on the current SOI platform.

SOI TF HOMEWORK: Re: Draft Recommendations at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZrLZ5NSiSN35MeCYhxqQUP4G1v-Rzsty/edit [docs.google.com], TF members to review the Draft Recommendations with their respective groups and post comments/suggestions in the Google document for consideration by the TF prior to the next meeting on 11 July.

4. Confirm next steps & next meeting (20 June or 4 July at 20.00 UTC)

-    Need time for a ICANN Legal review.
-    TF members should take this time to check back with their groups and also complete the SOI with revised questions.
-    Staff to consider what this would mean for changes to the Operating Procedures along with additional templates for guidance.
-    Suggest pushing the meeting out to 11 July to allow more time for homework and legal review.
-    Hope that by August we might be able to package this for public comment, but depends on Legal comments and feedback from TF members’ groups.

ACTION ITEM: Staff to schedule the next TF meeting for Monday, 11 July at 20.00 UTC.