Parents Get Say On Shielding Kids From Porn

Parents are to be asked whether internet pornography should be automatically blocked on computers and smartphones, ministers have said.

Campaigners have argued it is too easy for children to access explicit adult content.

Children's minister Tim Loughton said the internet industry, which is worth an estimated £3bn a year, needed to do more to help families control what their children saw online.

More than 100,000 people have signed-up to a Safetynet campaign calling for the Government to introduce legislation to ensure internet service providers filtered pornography at source.

Mr Loughton said: "We have always been clear we would turn up the heat on industry if it did not make fast enough progress."

But he warned an automatic filter risks "lulling parents into a false sense of security" and could never be "100% foolproof".

"There can never be any substitute for parents taking responsibility for how, when and where their children use the internet," he said.

A 10-week consultation will ask parents and businesses for their views on the best way to shield children from internet pornography and other potentially harmful sites, such as those which promote suicide, anorexia and self-harm.

Views on preventing online sexual grooming and cyber-bullying will also be sought.

Parents will be asked for their views on three possible systems - one where users have to "opt in" to see adult sites, or one where customers are presented with an unavoidable choice about whether or not they want filters and blocks installed.

The third option would combine the two systems, enabling customers to block some content automatically and then be given a choice to unblock them as they wish.

One in five 11 to 16-year-olds have seen potentially harmful user-generated content online, rising to a third of 14 to 16-year-old girls, figures from Ofcom's Children's Media Literacy Tracker 2010 and EU Kids Online II survey showed.

Andrew Flanagan, chief executive of the NSPCC, said: "Long-term we back the next step which is the introduction of an opt-in filtering system for all internet accounts in the UK, if necessary, supported by Government regulation.

"This will mean all new internet accounts will default automatically to a setting that blocks access to adult content.
"Over-18s can then request for this to be removed if they wish."

©SKYNEWS