IIA blacklist just 'œsecurity theatre', says EFA

Renai LeMay
Tuesday, 28 June 2011 15:40

IT Policy - Regulation

The scheme '” first outlined in detail yesterday '” is expected to see most of Australia's major ISPs voluntarily block a list of sites containing child pornography compiled by international policing agency Interpol, with the assistance of the Australian Federal Police. The legal instrument for the scheme to go ahead is section 313 of Australia's Telecommunications Act, which allows law enforcement to make reasonable requests for assistance from ISPs.

It is being seen as the telecommunications sector's more limited, voluntary alternative to the Federal Government's much wider mandatory filtering initiative.

In a statement issued today, Electronic Frontiers Foundation spokesperson and board member Stephen Collins said he completely understood why the various organisations behind the move '” the IIA, Telstra, Optus and so on '” were pushing forward with the plan, as it offered them 'the appearance of responsibility', the capability to block known offensive material and so on. In addition, he noted the IIA's comments that the filter wouldn't be able to protect against all exploitation of children.

However, Collins said the proposal didn't acknowledge the fact that 'the overwhelming majority' of child exploitation material '” illegal in Australia and most other countries '” wasn't actually traded on the public Internet or over the World Wide Web '” but through other online mechanisms such as email, peer to peer technologies or through virtual private networks.

'Appropriate cooperation between IIA and law enforcement authorities is a good thing in the main, especially as it applies to bringing child pornographers and other transnational criminals involved in major crime such as human and drug trafficking to justice,' said Collins.