Communications Commission, with a Specialized Saudi Team, Develops and Launches a New Domain Name Registration System Compliant with the Latest International Standards

The Communications and Information Technology Commission, led by its national team, launched the new registration system "Banan," dedicated to managing and registering Saudi domain names, making it the first system at the Arab level developed locally based on international standards and metrics

for the modern domain name protocol (EPP – Extensible Provisioning Protocol), which is globally adopted in domain name registries.

Among the system's most notable advantages is that it helps enable the private sector to register domain names by adopting the registrar model within the Saudi domain name system.

The Commission said in a statement today that it began early on with a specialized national team studying this protocol and its technical details, in addition to studying current systems supporting this protocol, whether commercial or open-source, determining the extent of the need to adopt it, and the appropriate way to implement it within the registration systems for Saudi domains. The Commission decided to rely on its national technical staff and implement the project according to a detailed plan to ensure the provision of an advanced, independent system that keeps pace with changes in technology and local requirements.

The Commission affirmed that the Banan system achieved several objectives, including localizing the technology and building national expertise and capabilities, and contributed to meeting local requirements such as supporting Arabic domain names and others, and relying on an open-source environment.

This comes as a continuation of the efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, through the Communications and Information Technology Commission, in the process of developing Saudi domain names, which is one of the sensitive national infrastructure services and important resources that the Commission seeks to develop and excel in at the regional and international levels.

It is worth noting that among the most notable features of Saudi domains (websites ending with the ".sa" suffix or the ".السعودية" suffix) are the credibility of the registering entity and the reliability of the domains; registration is only possible once the relationship is verified and proven through official documents, which eliminates cases of (phishing), in addition to preserving the rights of registering entities, as ownership of use belongs to the registering entity and not to employees or hosting companies, to avoid cases of bargaining and extortion. The best security standards have also been adopted for Saudi domain names, which are considered the first regionally to enable the use of the secure extension (DNSSEC), in order to increase the level of security and trust in the technical information related to the registered domain name. All services related to Saudi domain names are provided electronically and free of charge through the dedicated website, which can be accessed via the link (www.nic.sa) or the Arabic domain (سجل.السعودية).