Dear Colleagues, On Thursday, 10 September the RIPE NCC implemented a change to NIC handle usage. It is no longer possible to re-use an old NIC handle. Additional checks are made when an update is sent to the RIPE Database to create a ROLE or PERSON object. If the NIC handle is in use, or has previously been used and deleted, the update will fail and a new error message will be returned in the acknowledgement: ***Error: The nic-hdl 'name' is not available. This change was requested by the Data Protection Task Force and discussed by the Database Working Group at RIPE 58: http://www.ripe.net/ripe/wg/db/minutes/ripe-58.html In the new implementation, users can select any NIC handle they wish in the same formats as before. The choice of characters and numbers is at the discretion of the user, within the same limits as before. The only difference is that when a NIC handle is chosen that has already been used, the update will fail. The main consequence of this is that if you delete a PERSON or ROLE object you cannot re-create it with the same NIC handle you had previously. Under the old system there was always a chance someone else could have taken your old NIC handle by the time you wanted to re-create it; this was the main reason for the change. The new system ensures that NIC handles map to people or roles uniquely over time. This change does not affect automatically generated organisation names. But we would like to hear feedback on whether it makes sense to also have these map to organisations uniquely over time. Regards, Denis Walker Business Analyst RIPE NCC