InternetNZ: Child porn filter ‘not the answer’

An online child pornography filter being setup by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) has been criticised by online user lobby group InternetNZ.

The Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System, which will only affect users if their ISP decides to voluntarily subscribe to it, includes a list of more than 7,000 blacklisted child pornography websites. The DIA has said the filter will not cover e-mail, file sharing or “borderline material” and will be available to ISPs by the end of March.

It will be overseen by a DIA nominated Independent Reference Group made up of representatives from enforcement agencies, the Office of Film and Literature Classification, child welfare groups, ISPs, and internet users.

InternetNZ policy director Jordan Carter said InternetNZ supported a safe environment online and “deplores” child abuse, but a centrally operated filtering system was “not the answer”.

He called on the department to conduct an investigation into the extent of child pornography access on the internet and ways of addressing it.

“[A centralised filter] risks leaving parents feeling that the government is providing a safe environment, but it cannot deliver on that promise. The filter would only help at the margin, and child abuse material would still be available on the internet.”

Most images containing child pornography were traded through peer-to-peer networks or through internet chatrooms and the proposed filter would not reduce that, Carter said.

"The filter would disrupt the end-to-end connectivity that has made the internet the useful tool it is today. It creates some confidentiality concerns and is not subject to all the usual lawful checks and balances that apply to all other parts of New Zealand's censorship regime.”

There was also a risk that the filter could suffer from “scope creep” over time and begin censoring other websites including those supplying copyright material or sites breaching court suppression orders.

A DIA spokesperson said the new filter was not expected to completely stop the viewing and trade of child pornography on the internet but was another step towards reducing its prevalence.

“We don’t see that this is a total answer, it’s just another tool for us to use.”

The filter was intended to reduce adults' access to child pornography as well as prevent children from stumbling across it inadvertently. Parents would still have a responsibility to watch what their children were viewing online, he said.

It would not have any noticeable effect on the speed of people’s internet connections and the DIA had “absolutely no intention of widening the filter’s scope beyond websites containing child pornography”, he said.

The DIA would be “considering InternetNZ’s concerns and working with them” prior to the filter’s launch.

ISP’s including Ihug and Telstraclear trialed the filtering system and TelstraClear has said in the media that it will adopt the filter and its associated Code of Practice.

Orcon has said that it will not adopt the system.