Name: Stephanie Perrin
Region of residence: Canada, North America
Gender: female
Employment: PhD candidate, retired federal public servant
Conflicts of Interest: none that I am aware of
Reasons for willingness to take on the position: I believe ICANN is a
wonderful experiment in multistakeholder management of a key resource.
I want it to work. I believe that my experience and knowledge (listed
below) could be useful as ICANN faces a number of challenges. I am a
hard worker and a passionate advocate, and I would like to try to make a
difference here. There is a great team at NCSG, many different
characters with all kinds of talents and skills, and I would be proud to
represent them and the non-commercial users we all represent at the
GNSO. I have a lot of international experience, I understand key
stakeholders like the GAC, and I would love the challenge of trying to
help find solutions for some of the policy and procedural issues with
which the GNSO struggles.
Qualifications for the position: I have spent 30 years in the Canadian
federal government, most of it in the Department of Communications and
the Department of Industry, in the areas of telecom policy, and
international trade in telecommunciations, media and broadcasting, and
intellectual property. I worked in Canada-US trade and technology
impact assessment, during the 90s when the Internet was developed, and
have broad experience working with governments on e-commence. I
represented Canada at the OECD working group on security and privacy for
ten years, and was a vice-chair of the group which developed
cryptography policy guidelines. During the 90s, I also worked for ten
years on Canada's privacy standard (CAN/CSA-Q830-96) and was Director of
Privacy Policy responsible for turning that standard into Canada's
private sector privacy law. After the law passed, I took leave and went
to work as Canada's first Chief Privacy Officer, for Zero Knowledge
Systems, a privacy enhancing technology company that developed anonymous
browsing and email software. I have also worked, back in government,
for the past six years in risk management, integrity, and values and
ethics. I also was Director of Research and Policy at the federal
Office of the Privacy Commissioner, and worked to steer the office to
examine Internet issues, including the ICANN WHOIS issues of the day
(2005-7). I have done a lot of public speaking, and believe I can
intervene effectively to represent you. I am fluent in English and French.
This experience is very relevant to the policy issues I see at ICANN,
for the following reasons:
* ICANN is at an inflection point in terms of its maturity. It needs
to mature and develop better risk management, better accountability
and values and ethics, and better compliance with human rights law.
I think my practical government experience in these areas could be
useful.
* There are serious privacy issues at ICANN, and a lack of expertise.
This is my principal area of expertise, and I have a keen desire to
contribute and to make things better.
* Over the past year and a half I worked on the Experts Working Group
on directory services for new gTLDs, (WHOIS replacement) and I have
learned quite a lot about the issues behind this key debate. I
would like to contribute that expertise as the GNSO studies the EWG
report.
* I have also worked on the working group on accreditation of Privacy
Proxy Services, and on the working group on policy and
implementation. Again, my government policy work, and the many years
that I have volunteered on standards development groups and shadow
groups have, I think, given me insight into these processes that
could be useful. What I have learned from these two groups,
particularly the policy and implementation working group, would be
useful to a role on the GNSO.
Statement of availability for the time the position requires: I am no
longer working fulltime, and my studies are focused on issues related to
ICANN. I therefore have abundant time to devote to ICANN work,
particularly the GNSO. Over the past year and a half I have devoted
approximately half my work week to ICANN.
Additional information: I am studying at the Information School of the
University of Toronto. After working about eight months on the EWG, I
realized that the reasons that ICANN had failed to implement privacy
were interesting. I decided to switch the topic of my doctoral
research, from why privacy enhancing technologies were failing
(particularly authentication and credential systems), to why ICANN has
refused to adopt privacy policy or law. I have spent my career either
applying law or developing solutions, including technology and law, so
my return to school is largely to satisfy that hunger to understand
things at a theoretical level. However, when faced with a situation
where not much is happening, the practical side of me demands my focus
there. Although I continue to study why ICANN has not adopted privacy,
I am determined (whether or not you choose to honour me with your vote
and put me in the GNSO) to also fix that problem, and get some practical
implementation of commonly accepted privacy policies at ICANN.
Thanks for your attention.
Stephanie Perrin
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