Britain is light years ahead in fighting child porn
TheStar.com - Britain is light years ahead in fighting child porn
JENNIFER WELLS
A bilious sensation rises in the throat. Representatives of the business caste known as "Internet service providers" meet the media and say, well, hey, we're not the Internet police
Not much we can do about them there child porn pictures of the execrable type scrutinized by Michael Briere, say the ISPs. We are the "innocent carriers." The repulsive, illegal cargo? Not really our problem.
Next question.
All right, here's one. How is that the United Kingdom is light years ahead of Canada on this issue?
How is it that the U.K.'s Internet Watch Foundation has been in the business of cracking down on Internet crap for more than seven years and we have yet to establish its comparator?
How is it that the same foundation is funded, in part, by proactive ISPs who loudly and publicly proclaim their desire to help stamp out kiddie porn on the Net?
The Internet Watch Foundation was established in 1996. The following year it reported that 18 per cent of potentially illegal Internet content was "hosted" by U.K. Internet service providers. Today the federation claims that the figure has been reduced to 1 per cent.
How did that happen?
The fast answer is a broad coalition of co-operation and a shared determination to stop the Net-fed sexual exploitation of children.
The specific tools include an Internet hot line of the type advocated recently by Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant. In its most recent annual report, released in March, the IWF says that in 2003 it processed 20,000 reports of potentially illegal content. It also reported the grim statistic that of the 99 per cent of child abuse images traced to outside the U.K., 55 per cent were sourced in the United States, where, it notes, "very few" Internet service providers have registered with the U.S. equivalent of the IWF.
Lucky for the Brits, the IWF's hotline works closely with a national high tech crime unit, created in 2001, trained specifically to shut down illegal Net activities, including the dissemination of criminally racist material.
Greater luck: a "receptive and amendable" ISP community offers swift response via an effective notice and "take-down" system.
The IWF is highly visible, and posts the names of newly joined funding members. A company called Telewest Communications joined in April. Those who fail to join will become notable by their absence. An astute public can now choose a service provider based on whether they're in or they're out.
Movements such as these grow organically. Earlier this month, British Telecom announced the pilot launch of its so-called Cleanfeed project. The IWF reports illegal sites to the communications giant, which in turn blocks users from accessing the blacklisted sites.
The test has further drawn the battle lines between the "freedom first" Net believers and the "safety first" proponents who believe in the greater good of working to keep our children safe.
It's not web censorship. For web censorship, see, oh, Iran, where Internet service providers block web sites that purvey material critical of that country's human rights record and/or its political agenda. To repeat, Cleanfeed blocks illegal sites.
In May, British Telecom released a report prepared for it by London-based Futerra, a communications firm that works with the largest U.K. companies on issues of sustainable development. A key recommendation of the report was that ISPs take a commanding role in fighting the spread of child pornography on the Internet.
There have been repeated government proclamations here at home to do, well, something about this cancer. Most recently, the speech from the throne in February made a pledge to implement a strategy to counter sexual exploitation on the Internet.
The template is already there in the form of the U.K. initiative. And there are localized initiatives here that could fit into a broad national strategy. Cybertip.ca is one such. Established by Child Find Manitoba, Cybertip.ca is a tip line for individuals reporting the online sexual exploitation of children.
An aggressive national strategy has to come next. And who better to lend their support to such a project than powerful national communications companies? Come on down, Bell Canada.
There is, by the way, an answer as to why the U.K. is light-years ahead on this issue. The Brits have done exceedingly well in setting the pace for corporate social responsibility. Sadly, Canadian companies too often take their cue from the American counterparts who, and let's be exceedingly polite here, have been laggards. Sadly, this issue has not proved the exception.
June 20, 2004 at 04:28 PM in Online crime | Permalink
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