[ALAC] Fwd: R: Confidentiality

Tue Jan 21 02:51:08 UTC 2014

Hi Oliver et al

It is a shame that the Board embarked on such a high risk exercise that has
impacted on the responsibilities of others in this election process.  How
frustrating.  Nevertheless,  in relation to access to information about the
slate of candidates, I believe that those of us who will be involved in the
election should be as informed as possible, and should sign a
confidentiality agreement, as a matter of course, before we see ANY
information about candidates. 

Maureen

-----Original Message-----
From: alac-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org
[mailto:alac-bounces at atlarge-lists.icann.org] On Behalf Of Olivier MJ
Crepin-Leblond
Sent: Monday, 20 January 2014 3:47 p.m.
To: ALAC Working List
Subject: Re: [ALAC] Fwd: R: Confidentiality

Dear all,

following up on Roberto's message below and to summarise the status so far:

The Board Governance Committee (BGC) who run the 360 reviews on current
Board members whose term is due to expire will not be able to provide its
report to the BCEC in time before the BCEC selects its slate of candidates.

The results of the review of our current Board member will therefore need to
be shared amongst a wider set of people, very likely to be the complete
electorate - hence the ALAC members & Regional Leaders. 20 people.
As the BCEC asked its members to sign a confidentiality agreement, I think
it is also fair to ask the ALAC and Regional Leaders to sign a
confidentiality agreement.

I have never seen such a review, so do not know what we are speaking about.
I have asked the BGC and have asked the Chair of the Board and both have
told me that the way we use that information is to the discretion of the
ALAC Chair *but* it would indeed be sensible to share it only with those who
will need to know - out of respect for the private nature of some of the
contents of the review.

So I'd suggest the signing of a confidentiality agreement by *all* voters.
Alternatively, you could also decide individually to NOT sign a
confidentiality agreement and then not receive the information.
Considering an informed voter is better than an uninformed voter, I would
recommend against this.
Comments? Questions?

Kind regards,

Olivier

On 21/01/2014 02:02, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> an IT problem caused that this message from Roberto Gaetano, Chair of 
> the At-Large Board Candidate Evaluation Committee never arrived on the 
> ALAC working list. You may have seen my and Tijani's replies, but not 
> Roberto's message, which must have been a bit confusing.
>
> Please be so kind to find the two emails below from Roberto, for your 
> information.
> Kind regards,
>
> Olivier
>
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	R: Confidentiality
> Date: 	Mon, 20 Jan 2014 14:02:21 +0100
> From: 	Roberto Gaetano <roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com>
> To: 	Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl at gih.com>
> CC: 	'ICANN At-Large Staff' <staff at atlarge.icann.org>, 'ALAC Working
> List' <alac at atlarge-lists.icann.org>
>
>
>
> Following up on this thread, having also read all the comments, I 
> would like to clarify a few things.
>
> Then, the ball will be in the hands of ALAC Leadership for decisions.
>
> The original point was about access to the 360 review, not to the 
> candidates EoI. On the other hand, the EoIs are meant to be 
> information available to all people involved in the decision, not just the
BCEC:
> therefore there is no confidentiality issue there.
>
> The point was that the owner of the 360 review is the ICANN Board, and 
> that the Chair of the BGC had agreed to give the document to BCEC, 
> provided that all the members sign a non-disclosure agreement to 
> commit to confidentiality. Therefore the BCEC will not provide this 
> information to other parties. Whether philosophically the ALAC voting 
> members have or not the right of accessing this information is not a 
> BCEC problem, but a matter of an agreement between ALAC and the BGC. 
> If the ICANN Board agrees, the BGC will give access to this 
> information under the conditions that will be negotiated. Personally, 
> I believe that a non-disclosure agreement would be necessary, but it is
just my opinion.
>
> The good news is that the ICANN Board is at fault as it has not 
> provided yet the document, which is extremely unlikely, at this point 
> in time, to reach the BCEC before we produce the slate of candidates. 
> As observed by Tijani, who chairs the committee who owns the schedule, 
> no extension to the deadline will be authorized. This means that we 
> have a pretty good reason for asking that the full voting body has 
> access to the 360 review, because the BCEC did not have it on time to take
it into account.
>
> The bad news is that the reference letters and the interviews with the 
> referees, that have been recorded are also part of the documentation 
> on which the BCEC has also committed to confidentiality. For instance, 
> one referee has explicitly stated that he/she would not have accepted 
> to provide information if there was any chance of leaking to a wider 
> audience than the BCEC.
>
> If the ALAC voting members believe that reference checking is an 
> essential part of the evaluation and vote, I recommend that action is 
> taken as soon as possible to contact all referees and ask their 
> explicit authorization for releasing the reference letters and/or 
> recordings to a wider audience. Be aware that I expect some refusals, 
> and in this case you need to decide how to weight the not accessible
references.
>
> I know that this is a sticky issue that will cause a lot of traffic, 
> but the sooner there is a decision, the better it is. For my part, I 
> can confirm that I will remain committed to the non-disclosure paper 
> that I have signed.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Roberto
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
>  
>
> *Da:*Roberto Gaetano [mailto:roberto_gaetano at hotmail.com]
> *Inviato:* martedì 17 dicembre 2013 18:20
> *A:* Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond (ocl at gih.com)
> *Cc:* 'ICANN At-Large Staff'; 'ALAC Working List'
> *Oggetto:* Confidentiality
>
>  
>
> I was trying unsuccessfully to ask for the floor after the comments 
> from Tijani and Alan, maybe my line was muted, then I had to go back 
> to my meeting, where I am right now.
>
> I would like to go on record saying that:
>
> ·         I share completely what Tijani has said -- as a matter of fact
> we had discussed and agreed in Buenos Aires our common position. The 
> wider the number of people that have access to a piece of information, 
> the higher the risk that we have leaking data, and from that on the 
> step to the information being public is very small.
>
> ·         BCEC has taken the issue of confidentiality very seriously, I
> have consulted with the NomCom Chair and with ICANN General Counsel 
> and then decided to require the non-disclosure to be signed by all, 
> before giving access to confidential material.
>
> ·         If the principle of access to the current Board member
> evaluation by the voters, although being a theoretically valid 
> question, brings as a corollary the question on why should the voters 
> also not have access to the reference letters for all candidates. You 
> see that, step by step, we can undermine completely the 
> confidentiality, and therefore the trust in the process.
>
> ·         The ALAC can decide to open up to a larger audience but I
> would strongly recommend, if you do so, to at least require a 
> non-disclosure similar to the one that BCEC members have signed. I 
> would also encourage you to look for advice by General Counsel.
>
> ·         The hypothesis of having BCEC members to informally share
> information with the regional voters is in open violation of the 
> confidentiality agreement signed by BCEC members.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Roberto
>
>  
>
>
>
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--
Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html

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