MPS call for automatic block on all online porn

INTERNET users should automatically be blocked from accessing pornography at home to stop the surge in children seeing adult material, MPS will demand today.

Anyone wanting to view hardcore images online should have to ‘opt out’ of a special filter, according to the panel of MPS and peers looking into child protection.

Their report said that six out of ten children download adult material because their parents have not installed filters. The use of protective filters in homes has fallen from 49 per cent to 39 per cent in the last three years.

They concluded that parents were often outsmarted by their web-savvy children and felt unconfident in updating and downloading content filters. Many parents were ‘oblivious’

‘This is hugely worrying’

to the type of material available on the internet and were often shocked when they realised the content that children were accessing.

Claire Perry, the Tory MP who chaired the Independent Parliamentary Inquiry on Online Child Protection, said: ‘This is hugely worrying.

‘While parents should be responsible for their children’s online safety, in practice, people find it difficult to put content filters on the plethora of internet-enabled devices in their homes.’

Mrs Perry added: ‘It’s time that Britain’s internet service providers, who make more than £3billion a year from selling internet access services, took on more of the responsibility to keep children safe.’

The inquiry called for internet service providers to offer ‘one-click filtering’ for all devices within a year. This would block out adult content for all domestic broadband users and stop them accessing pornography on mobiles and ipads as well as PCS and laptops.

The inquiry said that the Government should launch an official inquiry into internet filtering and ministers should seek ‘ backstop legal powers to intervene should the ISPS fail to implement an appropriate solution’.

However, some of the major internet companies refused to appear before the inquiry, saying they would only discuss the proposals in private and warned that the filters would be too expensive to implement or could slow down internet speeds.

Witnesses before the inquiry pointed to dramatic changes in the availability of hard- core images, making it easier for children to access extreme porn.

‘As a result, more hard-core imagery is now available in the “free shop front” of commercial porn sites,’ the report said.

It also found that only 3 per cent of porn sites asked for proof of age and two thirds did not contain any warning that they were for adults only.

Shockingly, the report found that children were being referred to counsellors for porn addiction.

Witnesses described the situation as a ‘social experiment with unknown long-term consequences’.

But critics warned the Government should not be in the business of censorship. Nick Pickles, of campaign group Big Brother Watch, added: ‘ Technology is not a substitute for parenting or a quick fix for social problems.’

Ministers are expected to reveal whether they will agree to tougher regulation of the internet in a green paper due out soon.