Posted: 26th Nov, 2010 By: MarkJ
The
Conservative MP for Wiltshire,
Claire Perry, has demanded that broadband ISPs in the UK be "
required" to restrict universal access to pornographic content by implementing an
opt-in system that requires
verification that a user is over 18 for access to such material.
The move follows a recent study, which reported that
one in three children aged 10 have viewed pornography on the internet, while four in every five children aged 14 to 16 admitted to regularly accessing explicit photographs and footage on their home computers.
Claire Perry said:
"As a mother with three children I know how difficult it is to keep children from seeing inappropriate material on the Internet. We already successfully regulate British TV channels, cinema screens, high street hoardings and newsagent shelves to stop children seeing inappropriate images and mobile phone companies are able to restrict access to adult material so why should the Internet be any different? British Internet Service Providers should share the responsibility to keep our children safe so I am calling for ISP's to offer an "Opt In" system that uses age verification to access pornographic material."
However Perry's proposal somewhat ignores the fact that a number of ISPs already offer
Parental Control features and most Mobile Broadband providers impose a similar restriction by default, which requires
Credit Card Verification to disable. Another alternative is for parents to move computers into an area of their home where children can be supervised.
Likewise there are
plenty of free and commercial solutions available to help resolve this problem, which normally only take a quick Google search to uncover. The more technically minded parent can also swap their ISPs DNS servers for
OpenDNS and enable parental controls.
Unfortunately it is impossible to completely censor internet content away from the prying eyes of children. There are more ways of easily circumventing such blocks, which only provide an illusion of control, than there are methods of blocking in the first place. ISP controls, which should still be offered, are ultimately no substitute for good parenting.