THE federal Government has released details of its long-awaited call for expressions of interest on live internet-service-provider content filtering trials. The Government is asking all ISPs to participate, as their feedback is important. Child protection group Child Wise welcomed the news, but a technical group has dubbed the venture a risky business for ISPs. BigPond, the nation’s largest internet service provider, is reviewing the call’s terms and conditions before making a decision.
The Government, through the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), has completed closed lab trials of ISP content filtering conducted by Enex TestLab. The live trial, however, is the first step towards evaluating whether ISP-level content filtering is feasible in Australia.
"The participation of industry is crucial to providing evidence on the real-world impacts for ISP content filtering, including on ISPs and their customers," the government document, released yesterday, says.
ISPs have until December 8 to submit their applications.
The intention of the live pilot – also managed by Enex TestLab – is to assess the impact of ISP content filtering on fixed and mobile internet access devices.
The live pilot is scheduled to begin before the end of the year, but ISPs will be able to start later, preferably before Christmas eve.
"Ideally, ISPs will participate in the pilot for a minimum of six weeks," the document says.
"ISPs that commence earlier will have the discretion to participate in the pilot until its conclusion."
The Government plans to have two streams of filtered content.
The mandatory portion will adhere to a blacklist of thousands of illegal web pages managed by ACMA and an optional clean feed of URLs that would automatically censor content, mostly adult material.
"The Government intends to take an evidence-based approach to content filtering at the ISP level and is committed to working closely with industry to address any concerns, including costs and impacts on internet speeds," the Communications Department said.
"These concerns will be carefully considered during a live pilot of ISP filtering, which will test a range of content filtering solutions in a real-world environment, with the co-operation of ISPs (including mobile telephone operators) and their customers.
"The outcomes of the pilot will inform the Government’s decision-making on the ISP filtering framework."
A spokesman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the Government had been working with ISPs to develop the call for expressions of interest.
Telstra, which runs the country’s largest ISP, BigPond, has yet to decide whether to participate.
"We’re in the midst of reviewing the EOI document," Telstra spokesman Martin Barr said.
Sage-Au, a not-for-profit professional organisation representing system administrators, said participating in the live trial at this stage was a big risk for ISPs.
"It is a very important risk they take, as it is the participants in this trial that are likely to be able to make the biggest difference in discussions after the end of the trial," Sage-Au president Donna Ashelford said. "On the other hand, if the live trial turns out to be a disaster, having their name associated with it – as promised in the EOI document – might be a dual-edged sword."
Ms Ashelford pointed to technical weaknesses with the EOI, one example being that the live pilot would limit users to a maximum of 12Mbps.
"Many users exceed 12Mbps right now. Some national broadband network proposals have involved technology that provides speeds up to 50Mbps.
"How future-proof is the national broadband network supposed to be when filtering systems are virtually guaranteed to bottleneck the resulting network," she said.
Ms Ashelford pointed to a part of the document on ACMA’s role: "ACMA is responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the blacklist and the whole framework requires use of the ACMA blacklist as a mandatory requirement.
"But who watches the watchers, and what methods are imagined for addressing inevitable inaccuracies in the ACMA blacklist?"
Sage-Au has also proposed a three-pronged plan to keep the internet safe for families, as it supports any practical initiatives to protect children from viewing objectionable content on the web.
Ms Ashelford said a family friendly ISP program run by the internet industry association lacked awareness and could do with a big push.
She called on the Government to invest more in educating parents on cyber-safety. More funds should be allocated to organisations such as ACMA and the Australian Federal Police to identify and remove illegal content, usually hosted overseas, she said.
Meanwhile, Child Wise chief executive Bernadette McMenamin described the release of the document EOI as "an excellent development".
"It’s a fair and inclusive process that ISPs can be part of," she said. "I wouldn’t like to see anything but child sexual abuse sites blocked.
"I like the two-tier approach of a mandatory, and opt-in and opt-out mechanism."
However, any form of content filtering would have to accompanied by an extensive education campaign, she said.