news The nation’s peak ISP representative body today acknowledged it did not know which Australian ISPs had signed up to implement the limited Internet filtering initiative which it developed six months ago, with the scheme passing out of its remit and into the control of the Australian Federal Police.
The initiative was proposed by the Internet Industry Association in late July this year, as a voluntary code of practice that would see ISPs block a list of a “worst of the worst” list of child pornography sites generated by international policing agency Interpol and overseen by the Australian Federal Police. It has been seen as a more moderate industry approach developed in reaction to the Federal Government’s much more comprehensive filter scheme.
At the time, although the IIA predicted that most ISPs would be filtering by the end of 2011, only three ISPs signed up to implement the filter: Telstra, Optus and a smaller ISP named CyberOne. However, last week, the AFP revealed in a delayed response to a Senate Estimates question in October that two more ISPs had signed up to implement the scheme, to make a total of five.
A number of major ISPs have been contacted by Delimiter today to request confirmation on whether they are participating in the scheme, as it is not yet clear who the new ISPs to start filtering are.
Speaking via telephone this afternoon, IIA chairman Bruce Linn said he was “not aware” of who the other two ISPs participating in the filtering scheme were. “I have to say, I don’t know who the other two are,” he said. Linn said it had been a joint initiative (between the ISPs, the IIA and the AFP) to develop the filtering scheme, but it was now “a law enforcement issue” in terms of which ISPs implemented the filter.
The mechanism for ISPs to implement the scheme is that ISPs speak to the AFP directly about it. Following their pre-consent, the AFP will then issue them with a notice under section 313 of the Telecommunications Act which requires them to filter certain content from reaching their users. Linn said he was not aware that any of the IIA’s members had received section 313 requests from the AFP regarding filtering.
Transparency questions
The AFP this morning declined to reveal which ISPs had signed up to implement the scheme, stating that as it was voluntary for ISPs, it was up to the ISPs themselves to announce their participation in the trial. However, participation in the trial is not voluntary for customers of ISPs, whose Internet connections will be filtered without their knowledge.
In late October, Delimiter filed several Freedom of Information requests with the AFP and the office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy regarding the filtering scheme; seeking communications between those organisations and Telstra and Optus regarding the filter. However, both organisations have delayed the release of the information, citing the need to more closely examine the documents and consult with third parties before the information is released.
Today, Linn initially said he didn’t believe it was the IIA’s responsibility to make a judgement on whether the filtering scheme contained sufficient transparency and accountability controls.
“It’s a police process,” he said. “Law enforcement and transparency are always difficult issues because of the nature of the beast.”
However, when pressed, he acknowledged that as the IIA understood the process, it believed there were “appropriate controls in place”. “We believe and we are satisfied that in this case there are sufficient controls in place,” he said.
Some civil libertarians have raised the issue of scope creep and whether the section 313 process could be used by the AFP to request that other forms of content illegal in Australia — such as detailed instruction in crime or even information about euthanasia — to also be blacklisted by the AFP. It has been speculated that this could lead to a defacto scheme similar to the Federal Government’s more comprehensive filter scheme, which does not currently have the parliamentary support to become law — although it remains Labor policy.
Linn said the current filtering scheme was “not talking about ISPs implementing censorship schemes”. “It’s not a censorship issue; it’s a legal issue,” he said. “I don’t believe the ISPs have any desire or mandate to be involved in what you might call scope creep.” The IIA chief said the issue of extending the filter scheme was a question that would have to be asked of the Government, due to its policy setting role.
There was “not much point in speculating at this point in time” about what the IIA’s response would be if an ISP received a section 313 request to filter material not related to the Interpol list, he said. “We haven’t seen anything like that to date. We would have to see that.” However, he acknowledged that ISPs would be required to comply with whatever “the law of the land” was — as enforced “by the AFP or whatever the appropriate law enforcement agency is.”
In general, Linn defended the filtering scheme.
“The ISP community and the IIA has done its level best to get a sensible outcome that satisfies the government’s concern to remove the worst of illegal material, while preserving the public’s right to access information freely,” he said, noting the IIA believed its Interpol framework would be the best solution globally to the issue of accessing child pornography online.
In addition, Linn stressed the Interpol filter scheme was “not in the same boat” as the filtering policy which the Labor Federal Government has promulgated in the past. “Filtering in general is a difficult and generally undesirable thing to apply to the Internet,” he said. “We don’t support filtering and never have.”
Opinion/analysis to follow in a separate article.
pfff – the IIA is bleeding membership, can’t find anyone that wants to be its CEO and are struggling for relevance….
So if the ISP filter doesn’t censor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship) then I would really like to know what it does. Seems to me that there is a real conspiracy of silence here which involves the ISPs the AFP and the Government. I really would be interested to know what they are scared about.
Are they expanding the Interpol list to include items that would fall foul of the Australian definition of child sex abuse images such as it looks like someone may be under 18 years old and not telling us?
” … a voluntary code of practice that would see ISPs block a list of a “worst of the worst” list of child pornography sites generated by international policing agency Interpol and overseen by the Australian Federal Police.”
What does that mean? I’m relaxed about my ISP filtering on the Interpol list. The controls on the list look ok to me. “Overseen by the AFP” is a real worry though. The AFP is clearly and repeatedly incompetent. Interpol … ok. The AFP … no way!!
“What does that mean? I’m relaxed about my ISP filtering on the Interpol list. The controls on the list look ok to me”
I would respecfully suggest that you take a closer look at the Interpol filter system which can be found here http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Crimes-against-children/Access-blocking
It is of note that it can be incorporated into a countries own blocking system and that although a site may have removed all offensive material under the Interpol definition if there is material on the site that is illegal in the user country the site can remain in the Interpol list and continue to be blocked.
The domain name filtering system used by Interpol is known to overblock and they admit that in their information but have the belief that it is more important to block t”he worst of the worst” than worry about innocent people or their rights.
Sorry but I am not that relaxed or trusting about this filter.
The Filter used in the UK blocked wikipedia because of a piece of album art.
The filter in the UK you refer to blocks URLs ie. individual web pages not domains ie. whole sites. The problem was that the Wikipaedia site suddenl saw an enormous number of requests coming from one address (the clean feed proxy) and thought that it was a DDoS attack and blocked all access from the UK. The interesting thing is that this piece of artwork was also on the Amazon web site and they didn’t try to block that. Wonderful invention these ISP based filters.
“There was “not much point in speculating at this point in time” about what the IIA’s response would be if an ISP received a section 313 request to filter material not related to the Interpol list, he said.”
Of course there’s no point speculating about that, because an ISP would have no way of knowing when it happens!
“In addition, Linn stressed the Interpol filter scheme was “not in the same boat” as the filtering policy which the Labor Federal Government has promulgated in the past. ”
Yeah, it’s in the similar boat next to it, travelling down the same censorship sewer pipe.
Anyone proposing or defending these censorship initiatives is either lying, a naive fool, or a combination of the two. Anyone with any significant knowledge of the internet can see that this won’t work as ‘intended’. The only possible path this has is extending to censor things that most internet users wouldn’t want gone, like politically sensitive material or ‘piracy’ or anything else that they have no right to obstruct. The whole thing is a slippery slope… and if the government slips we may just end up like China.
It’s just an enormous joke, and one that is characteristic of the fact that the people have no real say in what the government does.
¨There was “not much point in speculating at this point in time” about what the IIA’s response would be if an ISP received a section 313 request to filter material not related to the Interpol list, he said. “We haven’t seen anything like that to date.¨ WTF? The only way he would know that would be if he had seen both the Interpol list and the AFP list, both of which are supposed to be secret, and both of which are supposed to have not been seen by anyone outside of law enforcement. So, there is at least one lie in there somewhere.
I think it is time to stop calling it ¨voluntary¨ if consumers can not identify censoring ISPs and base purchases accordingly a better name would be ¨complicit censorship¨.
This really is degenerating in to farce, I look forward to seeing the CEOs of the 2 new ISPs giving interviews wearing Guy Fawkes masks
According to Interpol, “the default page of a domain may appear legal in order to hide the illegal material placed in a more inaccessible location on the domain. The direct address to access the material is then provided to advertisement pages and subscribers of the domain. Blocking access to the whole domain in cases like this is not considered a mistake.” (Reference: http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Crimes-against-children/Access-blocking/Concerns-about-access-blocking).
Think about it. The Interpol filter has just delivered an attractive new tool to the criminals who roam the Internet, who (for a fee) will doubtless be happy to insert a rogue link on a domain of choice, causing the filter to take it out. Using standard coding techniques, the link need not even be visible. Even after your competitor eventually finds the link and removes it, his domain could still remain blocked almost forever. Interpol’s response? Tough luck.
As for the Australian ISPs who are signing up to this inane scheme, if I was one of their corporate customers who require a dependable web presence, I’d now be seriously looking for another ISP.
As Womp said, a complete farce.
Here is a point , if ya don’t trust the AFP !!! change ya dns in ya router to that of an overseas dns-site like opendns or one of the many other sites around the world, do a Google search !
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