Interpol wants to join the GAC

Interpol plans to apply to join ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee as an observer, according to ICANN.

The news came in a press release this evening, detailing a meeting between ICANN president Rod Beckstrom and Interpol secretary general Ronald Noble.

The meeting “focused on Internet security governance and enhancing common means for preventing and addressing Internet crime”. Beckstrom said in the release:

We seek the active engagement of law enforcement in our multi-stakeholder community where all parties are welcome. We recognize Interpol as an important international leader in this field. We are very pleased by its expression of interest in joining the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee as an observer.

The GAC already has about 20 members with “observer” status, which can be granted to any intergovernmental or treaty organization.

Also in attendance at the meeting in Lyons, France, was ICANN’s new chief of security, Jeff Moss, VP of government affairs Jamie Hedlund, and Alice Jansen of its Organizational Reviews unit.

Law enforcement has been trying to get a louder voice at ICANN for some time, and calls have grown in volume given the increasing use of domain names as tools to shut down crooks.

At ICANN’s recent meeting in San Francisco, Interpol’s top cop on the child abuse imagery beat, Michael Moran, launched a withering critique of what he saw as the industry’s failure to help police the web.

Moran called for a system to be put in place for law enforcement to more easily be able to shut down peddlers of such content and more easily track the abusers.

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Tagged: crime, gac, ICANN, interpol