Government rejects automatic online porn blocking plans

The Government has rejected plans to force internet service providers (ISPs) to block adult content by default.

It said it had found most parents had "no appetite" for automatic porn blocking and will instead continue to work with the internet industry on ways to educate parents on keeping their children safe online as well as developing better age-verification procedures.

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Summarising the Government's view the Department for Education (DfE) said: "To date, the Government's approach has been based on expert advice that default filtering can create a false sense of security... [we] will not prescribe detailed solutions, but we will expect industry to [ensure] their customers, and particularly parents and children, have highly effective, easy-to-use and free tools that facilitate children's safety online."

MP Claire Perry who had pushed for an automatic ban, issued a statement saying she was "obviously very disappointed that the 'Opt-In' option I and so many other parents and charities wanted has been ruled out". But she said that she accepted that this was not what the majority wanted.

Background
The issue of shielding children from harm and inappropriate online content has been a source of discussion over recent years. Professor Tanya Byron carried out two reviews into online child safety for the Government; one in 2008 and a follow-up report in 2010.

This led to the creation of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS). In 2011 Reg Bailey produced a report, Let Children be Children, looking at the commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood.

In April last year Baroness Howe of Idlicote proposed the Online Safety Bill that would force ISPs and mobile network operators to "provide a service that excludes pornographic images" by default.

This was swiftly followed the same month by an Independent Parliamentary Inquire in which MP Claire Perry called on the Government to consider a compulsory opt-in scheme for accessing adult content online

In May, the David Cameron said that the Government would consult on all the options: default filtering of internet services; customers choosing the parental controls appropriate for their children; and a combination of these two approaches.

In October last year, the major ISPS Virgin Media, TalkTalk, Sky and BT signed up to a Code of Practice asking customers if they wanted to activate parental controls. At the time it was widely misreported that the ISPS were about to censor porn sites.

Consultation findings
The outcome of this consultation run by the DfE from 28 June to 6 September 2012 has now rejected the calls for an automatic blocking of porn sites by ISPs.

After the consultation closed, culture secretary Maria Miller said it was parents' responsibility to block porn on home PCs.

The Government department said parents had as much responsibility for keeping their children safe online as offline. It noted that the findings of the consultation showed that the majority of parents agreed, and preferred to personally have control over what they allowed their children access to online.

Nicholas Lansman of ISP trade body ISPA said: "ISPA welcomes the government's response. Online safety is a shared responsibility between parents and the wider industry, including ISPs, manufacturers and retailers, via providing easy to use tools, advice and information.

"ISPA will be working further with government and others on next steps."

A representative for the DfE said that ISPs would now have to be proactive in giving parental choice.

"New customers will be asked if they have children and the default answer will be ‘Yes'. If this answer is clicked they will then be asked if they want to activate parental controls.

"By default this answer will be ‘Yes' and if this is not changed they will then be taken to parental control software and shown how to set it up so it fits their needs."

But the DfE warned that as the internet is always evolving it would continue monitoring and working with the industry to improve online child safety.