Child pornography filtering service launches

A filtering system has been launched that gives users information about pages that have been blocked for containing sexual abuse images.

The Watchdog International Netclean Whitebox is available to all UK internet service providers (ISPs) and uses information from the Internet Watch Foundation's list of blocked sites.

It makes the routers in a network direct traffic to the Netclean Whitebox so that users are prevented from accessing servers that contain child pornography.

However, the developers of the Netclean Whitebox say it does not block access without giving a reason why, something that the IWF was criticised for doing last year when it blocked access to online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

Instead, when users click on a page identified as containing harmful images, the system will tell them that there is an active block in place, confronting them with a stop sign explaining why the page is unavailable for viewing.

John Carr, chairman of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition for Internet Safety, said: “Dealing with CSAI [child sexual abuse images] on the internet is not an optional extra. It’s part of the cost of doing business for a modern ISP.

“Governments round the world know that, technically, access to CSAI can be blocked and can be blocked inexpensively. If ISPs want governments to back off, and allow self-regulation of the internet a chance to work, then dealing with online CSAI is surely the acid test.”

ISPs can subscribe to the Whitebox service for around £250 a month.