UK homes banned from online pornography unless they opt-in
MOST British homes will not be able to see online pornography unless they actively request to access it, under plans announced yesterday by David Cameron.
He also threatened Google and Bing with legislation unless they block results for an unspecified blacklist of child abuse terms by this autumn.
Search engines already retrospectively remove abusive sites when alerted to them. But the Prime Minister insisted this was not enough and said the police would provide a list of terms that should return no results whatsoever.
By the end of this year most major internet providers will be required to ask new customers whether they want to opt-in to view pornography by the end of this year, with 19m existing customers due to be asked by the end of 2014.
But Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group said Cameron is placing “too much faith in technical tools that have historically proved flawed” and said a blanket pornography filter would only incentivise teenage children to find ways around it.
He also attacked the Prime Minister for conflating concerns about children accessing legal pornography with the need to crackdown on the distribution of child abuse images.