Telecom joins internet child porn filter

Telecom has announced it will join the Department of Internal Affairs’ Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System.

The system filters the web content of participating Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to known websites that contain child sexual abuse material.

Telecom Retail CEO, Alan Gourdie says Telecom is committed to assisting the Department of Internal Affairs in this step towards addressing this serious issue.

"The abuse and exploitation of children is intolerable and this filter works to block access to known child exploitation websites,” he said.

The Acting Deputy Secretary of Internal Affairs, Craig Armitage, welcomed Telecom’s decision to sign up to the filtering system.

"We are working in partnership with New Zealand ISPs. This filter provides a service provider with the means to protect their customers from inadvertently accessing these illegal websites and to fight and raise awareness of the worldwide problem of child sexual abuse and exploitation. The filter is an important tool to reduce the demand for child abuse material currently available on the Internet. Telecom and other ISPs signing up are to be commended for taking this step.”

Telecom has a dedicated physical connection to the filter to ensure it does not impact on general network traffic.

The Digital Child Exploitation Filtering System was made available to ISPs in March 2010 following a two-year trial, and is overseen by an Independent Reference Group, of which Duncan Campbell, Managing Editor of TechDay, publishers of NetGuide, is a member.

The filter focuses solely on blocking access to sites which are on a blacklist held and regularly updated by Internal Affairs. Anyone whose ISP is connected to the fiilter and who tries to access a website on the blacklist, is presented with an alert telling them that access to the site is blocked. If they believe the blocking is not warranted, they can appeal anonymously to Internal Affairs to review the site and content. If the content is determined not to be specifically related to child exploitation, the website will be removed from the blacklist.

Maxnet, Watchdog, Airnet and Xtreme are the other ISPs currently connected to thesystem. Another major ISP, TelstraClear, says it is joining "imminently" and work is in progress to install a permanent connection to the filter.

Vodafone says it fully supports the filter and has been working closely with Internal Affairs to implement it. Currently it is testing to ensure the filter works correctly and "doesn't impact negatively on any of our other services".

Orcon is continuing to decline to join the filter, saying it has concerns about its effectiveness and operation that have yet to be addressed.