Claire Perry’s campaign for a block to protect children from internet porn has been rebuffed by government ministers after a public consultation. The Devizes MP had called for an automatic block on access to internet pornography on all computers – meaning internet users would have to opt in to receive porn sites.
The government has said Mrs Perry’s solution to the problem was not widely supported. The public consultation found thirty-five per cent of parents wanted an automatic block while fifteen per cent wanted some content filtered, and an option to block other material.
In its response to the ten week consultation, the government called on internet providers to encourage parents to switch on parental controls.
Mrs Perry, who led the campaign and took a petition with over 115,000 signatories to Downing Street, said she was “disappointed”: “However, the all-important issue of getting internet service providers to do more to verify the age of the person setting up any form of filter or control has clearly been highlighted.”
Mrs Perry said she was ‘really pleased’ that the UK Council for Child Internet Safety had been told to sort out age verification procedures, working with the ISPs: “I would now like to challenge Ministers and ISPs to get a move on and implement the changes.”
UKCCIS is a voluntary organisation chaired by ministers from the Department for Education and the Home Office.
The NSPCC said parents’ voices were not being heard and that the figures showed half of the parents who took part in the consultation wanted some sort of automatic block on online pornography.
Some of those opposed to the block said it would not protect children from all ‘unsuitable’ material and so would give parents a ‘false sense of security’. Others called it nothing but censorship. But the report on the consultation also said that the kind of block proposed would not help combat internet “bullying, personal abuse, grooming or sexual exploitation.”
In a later comment Mrs Perry tweeted: “Encouraging Active Choice Plus+ Age Verification+ cleanfeed public WiFi = Govt doing more than any other in history to protect kids.”