Progress on APNIC’s resource delegation audit program was reported today during the Annual General Meeting (AGM) at APRICOT 2025/APNIC 59, following the announcements made on the preliminary results in late 2024.
The primary activity of the program is to review all IPv4 resource delegations and transfers made by APNIC and each NIR over a 10-year period to ensure compliance is being maintained with address policy. This activity is supported by several other proactive initiatives to maintain registry accuracy and strengthen policy compliance.
Update on preliminary findings
In December 2024, APNIC announced the results of preliminary findings of smaller delegation audits at IRINN and IDNIC. IRINN’s investigation was completed in 2024 with the recovery of 44 delegations that were found to breach address policy.
IDNIC appointed an independent investigator in December 2024 to further analyse APNIC’s preliminary findings of 1,216 delegations that contained several common datapoints across both registry and third-party data, indicating they may be questionable.
Since that appointment, APJII’s investigator (law firm Romulo Silaen & Partners) reviewed the company registration and contact data of all organizations included in the questionable delegations, and identified a number of companies with inconsistent, expired or missing data. Those organizations will be contacted in the next two months, with the aim of reclaiming space where non-compliance exists.
Alongside this work, examination of delegations with common connections and data points will begin to determine the legitimacy of those delegations. The next update from APJII will be provided in the second quarter (Q2) of 2025.
2025 Resource Delegation audit progress
APNIC’s analysis of JPNIC registry data (10 years) commenced in January 2025 and was completed in February. There were no adverse findings, and JPNIC was informed of the positive result of the audit following completion.
Analysis of registry data from the remaining NIRs, and APNIC’s own registry, will continue throughout 2025.
Supporting initiatives
Alongside the core delegation audit activities, APNIC is pursuing a number of other initiatives that aim to strengthen policy compliance further.
Randomised spot checks on new APNIC delegations to double-check policy compliance began in February and will continue as an ongoing process throughout the year. Data will be reported on the spot checks once a viable sample size has accumulated, but to date there have been no anomalies found.
Similarly, account accuracy checks, where APNIC staff proactively contact existing Members to assist them with ensuring their registry data is accurate, will be established as an ongoing process. Development of the process began in February and the aim is to finalise the approach (and any required collaterals) in Q2, with implementation to begin in the second half of this year.
A detailed review of APNIC’s resource delegation processes, workflows, and team structures will begin in March. The aim is to check current practice and identify any areas where policy compliance could be strengthened further.
Further updates
A dedicated web page has been created to house all community updates on the progress of the resource delegation audit program. Links to this post, the slides presented today, and the video of the update presentation can be found on this page.
All future updates will be published there, with the next progress update to the community due in Q2.
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