All You Need to Know About Changes to Domain Privacy

Whois System and Why You Still Need Get Whois Privacy

When you register a domain name you are required to provide personal information such as name, address, email, and phone number. Your personal information plus your domain creation/expiry/update dates and registrar name are stored in an online directory called WHOIS and it is available to the public. Most registrars offer an add-on service called Whois privacy to mask your personal information.

Introduction of new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) changed the public Whois system as we know it. Registrars like many other IT service providers had to adapt and revise the way they collect and hand personal information in order to be in compliance with Article 5 EU-GDPR, “Principles relating to the processing of personal data”. As a result, ICANN proposed a new interim model called “gated access system or gated Whois system” under this model the domain registrant personal information is no longer published and replaced by “REDACTED FOR PRIVACY“. In this model, third parties with legitimate reasons like intellectual property lawyers, law enforcement, and cyber security professionals can still access your personal information.

 

You might ask do I still need to enable Whois privacy. My answer is yes, although your personal information is not available to the general public there are still many third-party organizations with an access to the gated Whois system that can access your full name, address, phone number, and email.