700,000 Brits "still exposed to child abuse"

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 23 Feb 2009 at 11:11

A coalition of children's charities has warned that 700,000 Britons "can still get uninterrupted and easy access to illegal child abuse images" over the internet.

Around 95% of Britain's broadband subscribers belong to an ISP that blocks sites based on the blacklist compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation.

However, many smaller ISPs have yet to implement the blacklist, citing high costs and doubts over the effectiveness of the system.

The Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety claims it's time the Government brought the remaining ISPs into line.

"Allowing this loophole helps to feed the appalling trade in images which feature real children being seriously sexually assaulted," claims Zoe Hilton, policy adviser for the
NSPCC.

"We now need decisive action from the Government to ensure the internet service providers that are still refusing to block this foul material are forced to fall into line. Self-regulation on this issue is obviously failing - and in a seriously damaging way for children."

Zen Internet says in a statement that it "has not yet implemented the IWF's recommended system because we have concerns over its effectiveness. Our managing director, Richard Tang, is going to meet Peter Robbins, the Chief Executive of the IWF, to discuss these concerns."

When pressed by PC Pro on what Zen's exact concerns over the IWF system are, the company declined to comment because Tang was currently on holiday.

The IWF has, however, been at the centre of recent controversy over the ham-fisted way in which ISPs deploy its blacklist.

The watchdog's decision to ban a Wikipedia article on the The Scorpions' Virgin Killer album, because it contained a provocatively posed photo of a naked girl, led to millions of British surfers being barred from editing the site.

The furore made the album cover one of the most highly viewed articles on Wikipedia after the ban became public knowledge, forcing the IWF to remove the site from its blacklist.

Similar problems with the web proxies used by ISPs to filter sites on the IWF list led to the Internet Archive being blocked by Demon Internet earlier this month.

"We've now seen two high-traffic sites filtered in the past few months; and on both occasions bad things have happened, which have - rightly or wrongly - brought the IWF into disrepute," wrote security expert Dr Richard Clayton on his Light Blue Touchpaper blog. "The underlying policy decisions need reconsideration."