Claire Perry’s parliamentary inquiry has reiterated her call for a default ISP block on adult content.
Anyone wanting to view hardcore images online [or any other adult content such as Melon Farmers] would have to opt out of the default blocking, according to a 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 blocking filters in homes has fallen from 49% to 39% 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 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 non-governmental 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.
The inquiry called for ISPs 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.
Carefully selected witnesses before the inquiry pointed to changes in the availability of hard-core images: 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% of porn sites asked for proof of age and 66% did not contain any warning that they were for adults only.
