Filtering lacks clear policy objective: ACS

James Riley
Monday, 12 October 2009 16:08

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Varadharajan said the community would need to know whether the policy was intended to avoid users' inadvertently viewing Refused Classification material or illegal content while surfing; or whether it was "to prevent, detect, block and prosecute delivery, access, publication or circulation of RC or illegal content."

Or the policy aim could be to deter both and/or deliberate interaction with a wider ambit of RC, illegal or prohibited material using any method of Internet access.

"There needs to be a clear articulation of exactly what the policy is, because different levels of filtering will have a different level of impact and act with different levels of efficiency," Varadharajan told iTWire.

"And one of the things our report calls for is a clear articulation of what needs to be filtered. That is absolutely vital," he said.

The Taskforce states plainly that cyber security and child safety issues cannot be addressed through filtering alone, and would require government, industry and user intervention – and a lot of education.

Should Government proceed with a filtering plan – whatever it looks like – the ACS wants it to introduce a transparent oversight regime, especially in relation to the maintenance of blacklisted material and the possible creation of a ratings system.

Without regulatory transparency, and without public confidence in the processes behind filtering, a mandatory filtering plan might become difficult to sustain to sustain.

More broadly, the Taskforce points to the general limitations of the automated techniques for analysing multimedia content, and the almost impossible task of on-going filtering of user-generated content.

It also highlights problems associated with encrypted material on the network, pointing to problems that filtering products cause encrypted traffic.

Varadharajan said network performance can clearly be degraded by internet filtering, but would not comment specifically on Government plans because it was impossible to know its impact without knowing exactly the kind of system being investigated.

"If because of filtering you are forcing traffic to sub-optimal parts of the network, there are going to be issues,” Varadharajan. “So we are really talking about generic technical issues. But what is actually being done, we are not privy to it. That’s the problem."