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EIF’s Head of Development to Lead CENTR Task Force on Business Data Verification in Domain Registries

CENTR is the association of European country code top-level domain registries, bringing together ccTLD operators across Europe. All with an aim to collaborate, exchange best practices, and help shape a reliable and secure internet.

The task force led by Timo Võhmar will focus on a highly practical and increasingly important question for registries: how to verify business data in domain registration processes across Europe. Its scope includes mapping the available options for verifying European business entities, including open data sources, APIs, web interfaces, and third-party service providers. Another major objective is to assess how registries can verify whether an individual has the legal right to represent a business. As an added goal, the task force will also look at opportunities to automate this verification process.

Accurate registrant data is a foundational part of a trustworthy domain name ecosystem. Domain registries are responsible for operating and maintaining the registration infrastructure that underpins the use of domain names on the internet. Registrants are often subject to additional checks depending on the policies of the relevant top-level domain.

For domain registries, better business verification supports several critical goals. It helps improve data quality in the registry, reduces the risk of fraudulent or misleading registrations, and strengthens confidence in the registration process. It can also support compliance, streamline interactions with registrars, and make it easier to respond when questions arise around misuse, misrepresentation, or rights related to a registered name.

Stronger verification can help protect users from fraud, impersonation, and other forms of abuse that rely on false or unclear business identity.

What makes this task force especially valuable is its European scope: verification practices, data sources, and legal frameworks differ significantly from country to country. Mapping those national options in a structured way will help registries better understand what is possible, where the gaps are, and which approaches could be scaled or adapted across borders. If successful, this work could make business verification in domain registration more consistent, more efficient, and more automatable across Europe.

The task force will complete its job and present the results in autumn 2026.