Parliament to discuss child porn regulations

A Labour MP has proposed a bill to force ISPs to declare whether they have taken steps to prevent access to paedophilic Web sites.

Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South, has introduced the bill under the 'Ten Minute Rule', which allows a brief discussion on the issue, but is unlikely to lead to an immediate change in the law.

This bill is inspired by the success of BT's Internet filtering technology, according to Roger Darlington, a member of Ofcom's Consumer Panel, in a blog posting. This technology, called Cleanfeed, prevents BT Retail customers from accessing a list of Web sites identified by the Internet Watch Foundation as containing images of child pornography.

An AOL spokesman gave the bill cautious support, but said ISPs should not be forced to provide too much information to prevent criminals from using this information to avoid the filters.

"Anything that's a step towards child safety and reducing the number of child abuse images on the Internet is by-and-large a good thing," said the AOL spokesman. "Any information that we give away might help people putting this information online."

AOL also questioned if this bill was needed as most ISPs are already open about whether or not they have taken steps to prevent access to paedophilic Web sites. AOL has an in-house system that blocks some content, according to the spokesman.

The bill, called the Control of Internet access (child pornography), will be discussed on 26 October.