Re: [dns-privacy] Alissa Cooper's Discuss on draft-ietf-dprive-bcp-op-08: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

[Alissa Cooper <[e-mail]>]

Hi Sara,

Thanks for your response and the updates to the document. I’ve trimmed my DISCUSS down to the remaining issue.

> On Mar 4, 2020, at 8:29 AM, Sara Dickinson <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> (3) I do not think item #5 in Section 6.1.2 belongs in this document. I don't
>> see how it is within scope for the IETF to be specifying these sorts of best
>> practices, which are not technical or operational in nature but focus on legal
>> matters and likely require the involvement of lots of lawyers in order to get
>> the provisions written. 
> 
> I’m channelling Vittoro here (cc’ed) who as a Head of Policy helped to formulate this text…
> 
> The reason this was included is that the actual policy that will apply to the data is the merge of the operator's privacy policy and of the relevant jurisdiction's privacy laws, with the latter overriding the former in case of conflict. Since the former is in scope for the DROP it seems reasonable for the latter to be. If the goal here is to provide a document that informs users of what will actually be done with their data, then outlining which privacy laws will apply to them and how these laws will play out seems reasonable. 

I don’t really see how the above is responsive to my point. This is not the IETF’s area of expertise and therefore we should not be specifying best practices about it. Every IETF technology exists within a framework of laws and regulations that vary by jurisdiction, but we don’t specify best practices about them because they aren’t within our scope. We also don’t want our RFCs to be obsolete because one country or region decides to change its laws — we’re aiming for global significance.

> 
>> Also, I think what
>> this section asks for is not the norm today and therefore it seems odd for the
>> IETF to specify a best practice that operators may not have any chance of being
>> able to comply with (e.g., listing specific law enforcement agencies, privacy
>> laws, or countries where data centers will reside and the data will never move
>> from them).
> 
> It's also not true that supplying this information is "not the norm today". Any GDPR-compliant privacy policy must specify the legal entity processing the information, its place of business, the user's rights, and whether the information will be moved to third countries. Basically, points 5.1-5.3 only turn into best practice what the GDPR mandates in Europe - and there is little doubt among privacy experts that the GDPR is the current global best practice in terms of privacy laws. 

The IETF operates globally and I think endorsing the idea of fracturing data management and protection along jurisdictional lines is far from a best practice that the body of the IETF’s work endorses.

> 
> As for 5.4, there are already significant efforts for the disclosure of law enforcement access, even in the US and even with creative ways to circumvent legal issues (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary> ). It's not an issue that has no grounds in reality.


Best,
Alissa

> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> COMMENT:
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Section 1:
>> 
>> "This document does not, however,
>>      define a particular Privacy statement, nor does it seek to provide
>>      legal advice or recommendations as to the contents."
>> 
>> This is not accurate. The document does make recommendations about the contents.
> 
> Will remove ‘or recommendations’. 
> 
> 
>> 
>> Section 3: "the privacy of the DNS" strikes me as a bit of an odd term as the
>> DNS itself doesn't have privacy needs. Perhaps this means the privacy
>> properties of the DNS.
> 
> Yes - will update. 
> 
>> 
>> Section 5.2.3: I think the table and its associated text belongs in Appendix B.
>> It is not BCP material itself and is not readily understandable without the
>> rest of the text in Appendix B anyway.
> 
> Fair enough - will move this. 
> 
>> 
>> Section 5.2.4: "Resolvers _might_ receive client identifiers e.g.  MAC
>> addresses in EDNS(0) options - some Customer-premises equipment (CPE) devices
>> are known to add them." It would be great to add a citation there if one exists.
> 
> Yes - will add. 
> 
>> 
>> Section 5.3.3:
>> 
>> "Operators should not provide identifiable data to third-parties
>>   without explicit consent from clients (we take the stance here that
>>   simply using the resolution service itself does not constitute
>>   consent)."
>> 
>> I'm not convinced its appropriate for this document to be commenting on what
>> constitutes consent.
>> 
>> I also think that as a general matter the research in this area demonstrates
>> that privacy-by-consent is broken and that the number of cases in which an
>> individual providing consent for identifiable data sharing actually reads,
>> understands, and agrees with the terms of the sharing is miniscule.
>> 
>> It seems like the real best current practice mitigation here is to not share
>> identifiable data.
> 
> I appreciate the difficulties with this, but several aspects of this draft have got push back on the basis of how many operators actually employ the ‘best practice’. The reality is that many of the large recursive operators currently make some statement about the DNS service or in an umbrella privacy statement to the effect that they will share data if they have consent (and then completely fail to describe what that consent entails), for example:
> 
> https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/legal/privacy-full.html <https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/legal/privacy-full.html>  (Overall policy which appears to apply to OpenDNS - OpenDNS doesn’t seem to have a specific one)
> We may share your personal information with third parties for the purposes of operating our business, delivering, improving, and customizing our Solutions, sending marketing and other communications related to our business, and for other legitimate purposes permitted by applicable law or otherwise with your consent.
> 
> https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/commitment-to-privacy/privacy-policy/privacy-policy/ <https://developers.cloudflare.com/1.1.1.1/commitment-to-privacy/privacy-policy/privacy-policy/>
> Cloudflare will not sell, license, sublicense, or grant any rights to your data that we collect from DNS queries to any other person or entity without your consent. 
> 
> https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en <https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en> (Overall policy referenced from the Google Public DNS privacy policy page)
> We’ll share personal information outside of Google when we have your consent.
> 
> 
> It is somewhat frustrating that this draft doesn't tackle this issue in any meaningful way. We had previously included a clause in the DROP statement where the operator was recommended to outline their specific consent process (so in other words, not defining consent in this document in any way,  just requiring operators to clarify how _they_ define it given they have used the word) but this received some push back.
> 
> Adding an optimisation describing the ideal position (not sharing) seems reasonable, as would adding any additional text to clarify the limitations of the definition of consent in this document, but removing it completely would mean virtually no large operators would ever be even minimally compliant…..
> 
> 
>> 
>> Section 6.1.1: "Make an explicit statement that IP addresses are treated as
>> PII." PII is a bit of a jurisdiction-specific term. I would recommend using the
>> definition of personal data from RFC 6973.
> 
> Ack. 
> 
>> 
>> Section 6.2: This section should be an appendix.
> 
> That’s fine. 
> 
>> 
>> Section A.2: I don't understand why the reference to Section 8 of RFC 8484
>> isn't just in the bulleted list with all the other documents, and why there is
>> a generic note included with it when the specific privacy implications are more
>> completely discussed in the referenced section of RFC 8484 (just like with the
>> other documents in the list).
> 
> I think that text came in before RFC8484 was published and section 8 was quite limited, happy to convert to a bullet point.
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Sara. 
>