$129m to keep Australian children safe from cyberporn

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 13 May 2008 18:38

IT Policy - Government Tech Policy

The Federal Budget has allocated $128.9 million over four years "to create a safer online environment for Australian children." Law enforcement alone will get $49m and the government will press ahead with its controversial ISP filtering plans, but has stopped not confirmed earlier suggestions that this would be mandatory.

The Government says that funding will be provided to "support ISPs making available a filtered internet service, or 'clean feed', to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible to children." That phrase "make available" could be crucial. When reports of the Rudd Government's plans for ISP level filtering first surfaced shortly after its election, the indications were that it would be opt out and not opt in .

The Budget has allocated $49 million to "ensuring that the Australian Federal Police (AFP) Child Protection Operations Team can expand its capacity to detect and investigate online child abuse." This will pay for an 91 additional AFP members dedicated to online child protection by 2011. According to the Government, the funding will "allow the AFP to establish a victim identification and support capacity, to aid in the recovery of child abuse victims nationally and internationally...[and will] provide for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to handle prosecutions and related activities arising from the increased investigations of online predators flowing through from the AFP's investigations."

The government says that "the introduction of ISP level filtering of material such as child pornography," is central to its plan to make the internet a safer place for children. However there has been speculation that filtering would be extended to a much larger and vaguer category of "inappropriate" material

The government also claims that its ISP filtering policy "is being developed through an informed and considered approach, including a laboratory trial, extensive industry consultation, and close examination of overseas models to assess their suitability for Australia."

Communications minister Stephen Conroy said that "ISPs in a number of European and other countries are already filtering child abuse material. While there may be technical and cost hurdles, the message from other countries is that these can be overcome." This is not entirely true. Attempts by the Finnish Government to introduce mandatory ISP filtering have been hugely controversial  CONTINUED