Blow for Cameron as Brussels rules that new porn filters are illegal

Fury at EU move to outlaw ‘opt-in’ system that protects children

DAVID Cameron’s pledge to protect children from sickening online pornography has been dealt a potentially fatal blow by Brussels.

European Union laws voted through yesterday will force internet firms to scrap the porn filters they installed following a Daily Mail campaign.

The new rules make internet service providers treat all online traffic ‘without discrimination, restriction or interference’ – regardless of its content. It means that by the end of next year, filters that require people to opt in if they want to view online pornography will have to be removed.

Campaigners warned that the EU ruling had left children at serious risk and said it proved Britain had lost control over key decisions on matters of sovereignty.

Downing Street insisted ministers would bring in new domestic legislation to replace the voluntary deal that was agreed between ministers and internet firms in the wake of the Mail’s Block Online Porn campaign.

But legal experts warned any attempt by Britain to re-impose controls would likely be ripped up by European judges as it could be challenged in the European Court of Justice. Any verdict delivered by the ECJ is automatically binding on the UK, regardless of the wishes of Parliament or the Prime Minister.

A spokesman for the Vote Leave campaign for Britain to exit the European Union said: ‘Britain has lost control over key decisions like how to protect children on the internet. This is too important to be bartered away in an EU deal done behind closed doors.

‘Cameron promised he would solve this problem. He promised it was a “red line”. He’s then traded it away in a backroom Brussels stitch-up to help his pro-EU campaign.’

The Mail’s longstanding Block Online Porn Campaign called for internet firms to establish automatic opt-in porn filters to protect children from sickening material freely available on the web.

After an intervention by the PM, the major home broadband providers imposed automatic controls.

Announcing the deal with internet firms in 2013, Mr Cameron warned that easy access to web porn was ‘corroding childhood’.

BT, Virgin, TalkTalk and Sky agreed to contact customers by the end of last year to present them with an on- screen choice about family-friendly filters.

Families buying new computers or changing their broadband packages are prompted to tailor internet filters, restricting access to adult content, if there are children in the home. Parents who do not specify what filters they want will see access to pornographic material blocked.

The new rules were passed by the European Parliament as part of a new deal designed to cut mobile phone roaming charges across the bloc. The regulation spells out the rights of users to ‘access and distribute information and content… via their internet access’.

It requires internet firms to ‘treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference’ regardless of the ‘content accessed or distributed’. It also prevents providers of internet access from blocking or restricting access to specific content. There is an exemption for illegal content, but this would not apply to vast numbers of pornographic sites.

Last night Downing Street insisted a domestic law could be passed to keep the existing regime in place which could not be overridden by the EU. A No10 source said: ‘ This won’t kick in until the end of 2016.

‘This means that if we need to we will bring in our own domestic law to retain the existing filtering systems the ISPs have put in place. In essence nothing will change.’

But an analysis by respected law firm Allen & Overy suggests any British law could face challenge in the European Court of Justice for being more restrictive than the EU regulation.

It states: ‘If national legislation is more prohibitive than the regulation, those rules will be subject to challenge by the ISP industry as inconsistent with the regulation.

‘There is also no room for national regulators to apply a stricter ‘‘national’’ interpretation of this exception.’ During the negotia- tions, ministers attempted to secure a specific exemption to avoid the UK having to legislate to keep the existing regime in place, but failed.

Tory MP Steve Baker, co- chairman of Conservatives for Britain, said: ‘Time and again we are finding we can’t govern our own country as we see fit. This appears to be yet one more example. It would be deeply worrying if children were left at risk as a result.’

The Mail campaign was a response to growing alarm at evidence that a third of young people have accessed online pornography by the time they are ten.

Six in ten parents say they are worried about their sons and daughters seeing violent and sexual material on the web.