RIPE NCC Report: Law Enforcement Agency Requests 2021

The RIPE NCC receives information requests from Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) and tries to facilitate the provision of any required publicly available information. The RIPE NCC does not provide any confidential or private information to LEAs without a court order or other legally enforceable order or request under Dutch law.

In 2021, the RIPE NCC received 57 information requests from LEAs, two of which were binding orders from Dutch law enforcement authorities. Overall, the RIPE NCC received a similar number of LEA requests as previous years. Despite the number of LEA requests from several different jurisdictions, LEAs seem to acknowledge the RIPE NCC’s procedures when the RIPE NCC advised that it either did not have the information or required a Dutch court order for non-public information.

The RIPE NCC received the following requests in 2021:

Order for a Specific Action:

• One case comprising of two binding orders from a Dutch law enforcement authority to block any changes on the registration records of specific Internet number resources. The RIPE NCC complied with these orders. There have not been any other developments on this case until the end of year 2021.

For non-public information:

• One order for non-public information. This request was from a Dutch law-enforcement authority ordering the RIPE NCC to provide non-public information it holds about the holder of a specific IP address. The RIPE NCC complied with this request as it was legally binding.
• One request from a non-Dutch law-enforcement authority to provide information about the former holder of a specific IP address where historical records are no longer available in the RIPE Database. The RIPE NCC replied that we cannot provide non-public data without a court order or other legally enforceable order or request under Dutch law.

For public information:

• Five requests on how the RIPE NCC would respond to an LEA request for access to information. The RIPE NCC explained how to access its publicly available data and also referred to the RIPE NCC procedure ‘Handing Requests for Information, Orders and Investigations from Law Enforcement Agencies’ where we describe how we respond to requests for information from LEAs
• Two requests on how to send an official request for RIPE NCC to get more information about an IP address. The RIPE NCC provided information on how to access its publicly available data and referred to the RIPE NCC procedure ‘Handing Requests for Information, Orders and Investigations from Law Enforcement Agencies’ where we note how an LEA may contact us.
• One request on whether the RIPE NCC holds non-publicly available information about its members and what the process is for accessing this information. The RIPE NCC provided information on how to access publicly available data and referred to the RIPE NCC procedure ‘Handing Requests for Information, Orders and Investigations from Law Enforcement Agencies’ where we explain what kind of information we hold.

For information the RIPE NCC does not have:

• 44 requests for the identification of Internet users of a particular IP address. The RIPE NCC provided information on its role as a Regional Internet Registry (RIR) and explained how to use publicly available information in the RIPE Database to find the party responsible for a particular resource.

For information not related to the RIPE NCC:

• Two requests for information not related to the RIPE NCC. The RIPE NCC explained its role as a Regional Internet Registry (RIR) and confirmed it is not responsible for the matters under question in the relevant requests.

LEA Requests Received by Type of Request per Year

LEA Requests Received by Country per Year