Ofcom Reveals UK Attitudes Toward Network Level Filtering by ISPs

Ofcom has published their latest report into the use of media by UK children and parents, which among other things finds that around two in five parents of children aged 3-4 (39%) or 5-15 (37%) use network-level filters on their home broadband ISP. The vast majority of those find them useful.

All of the markets largest broadband ISPs (BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk etc.) are required, as part of an agreement with the Government, to adopt a system of network-level filtering that blocks potentially harmful websites from the gaze of young eyes. Customers can disable this if they so choose, which is good because such systems have become notorious for incorrectly blocking masses of safe websites.

Overall 92% of parents who use home network-level content filters consider them useful (down from 95% in 2016) and a similar proportion (93%) say this about parental control software. The use of such filters has also increased since last year, although oddly a significant proportion remain unaware of the features, which is despite ISPs conducting plenty of promotion among both new and existing subscribers.

More than eight in ten parents of 5-15s (85%) have also talked to their child about staying safe online, although this falls to 65% for those with children aged just 5-7.

Interestingly parents of 5-15s who use home network-level filters said they were more likely than in 2016 to feel that their child is able to bypass them. As anybody familiar with internet networks will know, bypassing network-level filters is incredibly easy (e.g. VPN, Proxy Servers) and there’s very little that ISPs can reasonably do in order to prevent this (it’s largely a result of how the internet itself works).

Around one in five parents of 5-15s who use home network-level filters (21%) and one in six using parental control software (16%) feel their child can bypass these controls. Compared to 2016, parents are more likely to say their child can bypass home network-level filters (up from 15%), although this increase follows a decrease between 2015 and 2016 (from 26% to 15%).

Naturally parents of 12-15s are more likely than parents of 8-11s to say their child can bypass both types of content filter (30% for 12-15s vs. 17% for 8-11s for home network-level filters), which is hardly a surprise because by that age you’d expect them to be pretty clued-up on such things.

However it’s worth noting that when children aged 12-15 were asked whether they could bypass such filters, only 18% (i.e. those who go online and who opted to respond) said they know how to disable them and 6% said they’ve already done this. This should be tempered against the fact that children may not always feel as if they can answer such questions with honesty.

As for those parents of 5-15s who are aware of but do not use home network filters, some 50% said this was because they trust their child to be sensible online and others said it was because they use different ways of ensuring correct use (e.g. close supervision). Only 6% said it was because the filters block too much or get in the way of their browsing and 4% figured it was pointless because their child could find a way around it.

It’s worth remembering that the Digital Economy Act 2017 (summary) will in 2018 introduce a new age-verification system for websites that contain pornographic content. Under this approach the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will gain the power to force ISPs into blocking porn websites that fail to put “tough age verification measures” in place.

Ofcom’s report also contains plenty of other interesting stats.