3rd June,1997

INTERNET WATCH SIX MONTHS ON

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) was launched in the autumn of 1996 to address the problem of illegal material on the Internet, with particular reference to child pornography.

The IWF is an independent organisation established to implement proposals jointly agreed by the UK Government, the Metropolitan Police and the two major UK Internet Service Providers' trade associations: the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) and the London Internet Exchange (LINX).

Broadly the IWF proposals aim to enhance the enormous potential of the Internet to inform, educate, entertain and conduct business by:

hindering the use of the Internet to transmit illegal material, particularly child pornography;
encouraging the classification of legal material on the Net in order to enable users to customise the nature of their experience of the Net to their own requirements.

If anyone finds material on the Internet that they believe to be illegal they can report it to the IWF's "Hotline Service". The Hotline was formally opened by UK Government Minister for Science and Technology, Ian Taylor MP, at the "IT for All" seminar on 3 December 1996. It is taking a growing number of calls as more and more people learn of its existence and purpose.

Nearly 300 reports have been received in the first six months, referring to more than 1200 items. Follow-up action was taken on over 700 of the items referred to in those reports.

The majority was about IWF's priority action area of child pornography. Most potentially illegal items were news articles in a limited range of news groups: nearly all of them appeared to originate from outside the UK.

Following our investigation of the material reported to us, participating Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have been advised of the existence of the potentially illegal material and have removed it from their servers. Information has also been passed to relevant law enforcement agencies (through the UK police) to initiate action against the originators.

Our results so far seem to show that, with the co-operation of UK ISPs, we are hindering the availability of this material, but to tackle the problem at its roots needs international co-operation and effective action in the countries it is coming from.

The time that such international action might take to become effective in part underlines the importance of rating systems.

Rating Systems

A rating system is simply a way of classifying material. It works together with filtering software. Filtering software is available to computer users either as a commercial product, within the latest browsers, or it might be provided by an ISP.

Filtering software will prevent material with specified ratings from appearing on the screen of the user the ratings are set for. Alternatively, or in addition, it could block material from a particular source or site on the Internet. The computer user must decide what sort of material they do not wish their children or themselves to see and set up the filtering software accordingly. A rating system, or the filtering software on which its based, would not draw a distinction between legal and illegal material: if the material fell foul of the individual user's selection criteria it would block both.

In practical terms this greatly widens the choices available to computer users. For example, while all child pornography is illegal, not all pornography is illegal but it can still be highly offensive and completely unsuitable for viewing by children. If the protective software is set to block pornography, it will simply block all pornography. Thus while IWF's primary focus has always been, and remains, dealing with illegal material, our work can be of wider importance in providing more choices to the consumer.

The IWF is currently working with the Internet industry to develop a rating system that is suitable for UK requirements.

IWF has formed an Advisory Board to develop proposals for an improved rating system to apply to Web sites and Newsgroups. This is seen as an important development which will retain freedom of speech for anyone to post whatever they wish, but also allows freedom of choice for others to decide not to view it if it falls outside their own selection criteria.

IWF is also pursuing the development of rating systems in Europe and internationally. It has formed a group of European organisations with similar interests (INCORE: Internet Content Rating for Europe) which has prepared an action plan and submitted it as a funding bid to the European Commission.

We are also in contact with the World-Wide-Web Consortium (W3C), RSAC (Recreational Software Advisory Council: a leading US rating organisation), and the Australian Broadcasting Authority about the possibility of a world forum on rating issues.

The Benefits of Internet Watch

For the public and Government IWF offers a practical approach to reducing illegal material on the Net and encouraging positive use of this powerful medium.

Net users have an independent body to contact if they are concerned about potentially illegal content.

For the police IWF is an agency that can receive, filter and act on a large number of complaints. Much of the potentially illegal material is removed from general view in the UK without direct police involvement. For those cases that do require investigation and action IWF is a source of information and evidence.

Internet Service Providers and the wider Internet industry benefit in that the SafetyNet agreement and IWF:

• help them promote a safer environment for their customers and enhance their image as a responsible business;
• reduce the risk of police action without the nigh impossible task of monitoring the contents of their servers;
• provide a focus for participating in developments in the regulation, rating and selection of content (in the UK, in Europe and worldwide) at minimal cost.

The ISPs are now paying for all these benefits through subscription to IWF by their trade associations (LINX and ISPA) or through direct contributions from the major players (Demon Internet, UUNet and BT). (Replacing initial funding by the Dawe Charitable Trust)

The Hotline Service - What to Report

The vast and rapidly growing range of material on the Net means that effective action is dependent on the participation of the public in reporting problems that they find.

All users of the Net are encouraged to report potentially illegal material. The first priority is child pornography. The Foundation will assess whether reported material is potentially illegal.

We use the word "potentially" because there are no absolute guidelines from statute or the courts and an item is not actually illegal until a court finds it so. The legal position on child pornography is relatively clear and we are anxious to hear about any images of children, apparently under 16 years old, naked and involved in sexual activity or posed to be sexually provocative.

Making a Report to the Hotline Service

Any UK resident can contact us 24 hours a day to let us know about material they have seen on the Internet which they consider to be potentially illegal.

We need the following information:

• A brief description of what was seen on the Internet
• Details of where it was found:
  • For a World Wide Web site this will consist of the location of the page (usually starting "http://www". )
  • For a Newsgroup article this will consist of: the name of the newsgroup; the title of the article; the sender of the article; the date of the article; the name of the Internet Service Provider the reporter's account is with.
• How to contact the reporter if they want us to tell them what has happened with their report.

Contacting the Hotline Service

You can contact IWF

BY PHONE - to our hot line number 01223 236077
BY FAX - to our hot line fax number 01223 235921
BY E-MAIL - Send us a mail to: report@internetwatch.org.uk

More detail of what to report and how to contact us can be found at http://www.internetwatch.org.uk/hotline
(Net users are encouraged to look it up and bookmark the site so that they can easily refer to it when they are on-line.)

For further information contact: David Kerr, Chief Executive,
Internet Watch Foundation, 5 Coles Lane, Oakington,
Cambridgeshire, CB4 5BA.
Telephone 01223 237700. FAX 01223 235870 E-mail chief@iwf.org.uk