RIPE Database: Clean-up of unreferenced person objects

Introduction

The primary function of the person records in the RIPE Database is to document the contact people for IP address space, Autonomous System Numbers, or routing-related records. While all the data in the RIPE Database can be viewed publicly, unnecessary public dispersal of the information may cause infringement of the privacy rights of individuals.

Periodic automatic deletion of person objects that are not referenced as a contact will help to reduce the amount of private data and free the resources consumed by them.

This clean-up was discussed on the Database Working Group mailing list, and previously presented as part of the development plans.

Clean-up Process

The proposed operation of periodically removing unreferenced person objects will consist of three steps:

1. Periodically counting the references to person objects.
2. Warning the owners of objects by e-mail if they are unreferenced for more than 60 days.
3. Deleting the object automatically if it is still unreferenced 30 days after the warning.

The warning will be sent to the e-mail addresses in the "mnt-by:" or the "e-mail:" attributes of person objects.

• If the person object is maintained, each maintainer will be notified as follows:

  If there are "mnt-nfy:" attributes, the e-mail addresses listed there will be mailed.
  
  Or, the e-mail addresses in the "e-mail:" fields of the "admin-c:" and "tech-c:" entries of the maintainers will be mailed.

• If the person object is not maintained, and there are "e-mail:" attributes in the object, those e-mail addresses will be mailed.

Due to the initial high amount of unreferenced person objects, the time intervals mentioned above will not be observed for all person objects. In order to eliminate possible service outages, a limited amount of warnings will be mailed and a limited amount of person objects will be deleted every day.

No action needs to be taken by the recipient of the e-mail.