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Out-Law News 1 min. read

BT reports massive rise in child porn requests


Blocking technology used by BT to stop customers accessing internet sites blacklisted for containing child porn has registered 35,000 hits per day over the past few months – up from 10,000 per day in June 2004, according to reports.

BT launched the technology in 2004, with the intention of blocking access for BT internet customers to any website named on a blacklist compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). This blacklist relates to worldwide child sexual abuse websites that have been assessed as "illegal to view" in the UK. It is collated from reports the UK-based watchdog receives via its internet hotline.

The system used by BT, known as Cleanfeed, works by blocking requests from subscribers to access the blacklisted sites, returning an error page instead. The telco logs the access requests, and today revealed that these have jumped dramatically in the past year and a half.

As BT covers around one third of the UK's internet access market, this figure suggests that there could be around 100,000 attempts per day to access child porn on the internet, according to reports.

Peter Robbins, CEO of the IWF, said: "The increase in BT’s figures is consistent with the Internet Watch Foundation’s figures which show the number of ‘actioned’ reports – that is, reports received from the public via our internet ‘hotline’ where potentially illegal child abuse content was confirmed – rose from 3,438 in 2004 to over 6,000 in 2005.”

The announcement sparked calls for more to be done to prevent individuals from accessing such sites. But blocking is controversial: some privacy activists see it as the first step towards widespread internet censorship.

BT timed its announcement to coincide with Safer Internet Day, an annual event that this year is featuring a global blogathon to raise awareness of internet safety issues.

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