Hello, Thank you all very much for the feedback. I would like to provide a few clarifications that address the questions and concerns raised and the support expressed. The aim of this proposal is in line with the core purpose of the RIPE Database to enable effective contact between database users (including network operators) and supporting incident response. As Andrejs rightly noted, this is the foundation on which the database was built. However, the environment in which it operates has changed significantly over the past 30+ years. We now have more than 40,000 resource holders from all industries, spread across the entire world. This diversity regularly leads to confusion about who the actual resource holder is. Something the RIPE NCC sees every day when people contact us because they cannot determine the correct point of contact. Publishing the publicly available company registration number for legal entities would help users identify the correct organisation more reliably (and reduce unnecessary workload for the RIPE NCC). This wouldn't turn the RIPE Database into a business registry, a KYC system, or a tool for legal verification. Those roles remain with national registries. The database would simply provide the pointer that allows users to check the appropriate official registry themselves. In this sense, the proposal enhances the operational purpose of the RIPE Database. Regarding the concerns about security and operational risk, as noted before the full validated legal name of every resource holder is already published today. For many organisations, this is enough to identify them. Actors with malicious intentions typically rely on a broader toolkit rather than solely on the RIPE Database to identify their target. Publishing a registration number would not increase their capabilities. However, it does offer significant benefits to the many users who are less familiar with the registry system and often struggle to identify the correct resource holder, especially in cases of identical or very similar organisation names, or difficulties caused by transliteration. This improves both communication and incident response, as it helps ensure that reports reach the correct resource holder rather than an uninvolved third party with a similar name. As Clément mentioned, there are indeed some rare, special types of legal entities that do not have publicly available registration numbers, but the vast majority do. For natural persons, no registration number would be published, and nothing changes for them. I hope this provides clearer context for the motivation and addresses the concerns raised so far. I look forward to continuing the discussion. Kind regards, Marco Schmidt RIPE NCC On 17/11/2025 17:20, Clement Cavadore wrote:
Hello,
On Mon, 2025-11-17 at 12:01 +0100, Marco Schmidt wrote:
(...) Only publicly available registration numbers of legal entities will be published. Natural persons remain explicitly out of scope.
Please let me know your feedback. Questions and comments are welcome. On the big picture, I think this is a reasonable idea. However, there are so many registration authorities over all the RIPE service region, that it seems quite a cosmetic measure to me.
Additionnaly: Some legal entities do not have registration number (some non-for-profit organizations, in France, for example, have one, some do not have any).
I am unsure that having to make it publicly available (and maintained over time) would be simplifying stuffs for the database's maintainers (LIRs, end-users, or NCC).
Regards,
Clément Cavadore