Pornography is to be banned from public wi-fi networks by the end of the year, Devizes Tory MP Claire Perry, who is David Cameron’s children’s czar, has revealed.
Mother of three Mrs Perry says the move is vital to prevent children from stumbling across adult material when using wireless internet networks in places such as cafes and railway stations.
And also seeing others who may be downloading pornographic material in their presence.
But one of the country’s largest internet providers has issued a warning that the blocking move might as being against the law.
The plans are for internet options to block particular kinds of content, individual sites or restrict access at specific times of the day, a move intended to stop children from viewing porn online in public places.
BT was accused of “dragging its heels” over an agreement to filter its public wi-fi services by raising last minute concerns that it could find itself open to legal challenges.
The company claims blocking adult material which use BT public wi-fi might breach legislation passed in the year 2000, which bans the interception of electronic communications.
Last year it was revealed that the coffee chain Starbucks, which uses BT, had failed to filter adult material from its free wi-fi – putting children at risk of seeing obscene porn on other customers’ tablets or mobile phones.
Starbucks has now imposed a filter. But Mrs Perry, the Prime Minister’s special adviser on the sexualisation of children, remains hopeful that hardcore porn would be filtered out of all public wi-fi networks by the end of the year.
The six largest providers of public wi-fi – accounting for 96 per cent of coverage – have agreed to put adult content block in place.
The High Street shops will be able to display a “family friendly” logo so parents know their children will be safe.
“I’m really pleased that the internet industry is committed to providing public wi-fi that is free of adult content,” declares Mrs Perry. “It is entirely appropriate and means that children can surf the web safely in thousands of different places.
“Now we need to move fast in introducing family-friendly home internet filtering, to make sure that our young people are not accessing violent and pornographic images.
“The terrible recent story of the teenage girl raped by boys who had become addicted to internet porn only underpins how important these changes are.”
Internet web companies agreed to raise their game at the latest meeting of the UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which brings together children’s charities with ministers and the online industry.
While no exact timetable has yet been set, the hope is that the pornography filter blocks will be in place by the end of the year. The six firms are O2, Sky, BT, Virgin, Arqiva and Nomad.
Anne Heal, the representative from BT Openreach, points out: “There is considerable nervousness that filtering content could be regarded as intercepting data, and which could put providers in breach of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.”
The legislation allows certain public bodies to intercept data for national security reasons – but bans everyone else from doing so. BT’s argument is that filtering web use without the user’s express permission could be regarded as the interception of data.
But children’s charities say the law applies only to emails and other personal information, not to the sites people are able to visit.
One campaigner present at the meeting said: ‘People were completely astonished at BT’s timidity. But equally the fact that the government seem to be dragging their feet hardly inspires confidence.’
A spokeswoman for BT points out: “BT, along with other internet service providers, supports the objectives of the government and our customers for providing a family friendly internet through the deployment of filtering solutions for adult and pornographic content in the home and with our wi-fi partners.
“We have merely sought clarification regarding the potential legality of a particular approach to intercepting content in order to ensure that our customers, employees and shareholders are not put at risk.”
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