A week of Digital Reports ……

It has been a week of digital reports. On Tuesday the Digital Britain report was launched - introduced in the House of Commons at 15.30 and then a little later in the Lords. Lord Carter’s report has been much reported and commented elsewhere so the major points will be well known - particularly the proposal for a 50p per month levy (or tax!) on all landline telephone circuits to help to fund next generation networks and high speed broadband (fibre to the cabinet etc.) by 2017 and proposals for industry action agains file sharers.

But, as ever, the interesting bits are always in the details. Stephen Carter’s ‘Digital Britain’ report (you can download a copy here ) contains proposals for legislation to take actions against persistent file sharers. Here again is the three strikes route but there is recognition of the need for judicial review before termination - and there is also some recognition of potential for problems for the smaller ISPs.

But, in the media frenzy that accompanied Lord Carter’s report there seemed to be little attention paid to another digital report published this week, the ‘Digital Manifesto’ published by the Children’s Charities Coalition on Internet Safety. You can download a copy of the Digital Manifesto here. The Digital Manifesto, written by John Carr, Secretary of CHIS and Zoe Hilton of the NSPCC, is a new version of a document originally issued in 2004. Since that timere there have been substantial changes in the provision of high speed services and the availability of new types of content and service. It is apposite that the new Manifesto is now available, particularly in the run-up to the next General Election.

Of particular interest to those with an eye on the regulation of the Internet industry are the recommendations for action in the area of content blocking and filtering of access to child abuse content. Typically the sites containing abuse content are identified by the Internet Watch Foundation who are able to provide subscribing ISPs with a CSV blocklist.

The report suggests: “The Government should prepare a Bill that will compel all internet service providers based in the UK to adopt the Internet Watch Foundation list, or some other technical solution that blocks access to all known child abuse websites and newsgroups. The Bill should also detail or make provisions for a method by which compliance with this policy can be tested and publicly confirmed. If it becomes clear that some ISPs will refuse to implement a blocking solution unless compelled by law to do so, the Government should immediately put the Bill before Parliament.

In the meantime the Government should issue an instruction to all departments forbidding them from purchasing internet services from any ISP that does not deploy a solution that blocks access to all known child abuse websites. The Government should also encourage the remainder of the public sector to follow its lead. The Government should consider the use of tax or other incentives to encourage ISPs and other technology companies to develop and deploy new or speedier ways of tracking, blocking or destroying online child abuse images.

Some background is worth entering here. In 2006, the then Minister of State at the Home Office, Vernon Coaker, announced a Ministerial target for ISPs to introduce content filtering to block access to child abuse sites for all (ie 100%) of consumer broadband accounts by the end of 2007. This followed the trials conducted by BT with their ‘Cleanfeed’ system. It is estimated that now, in 2009, the implementation of content filtering is about 95% with predominantly consumer circuits filtered by the big 6 ISPs. There is now considerable pressure for action to be completed to close the remaining 5% gap - suggested as representing some 700,000 households.

There now appear to be some distinct groupings amongst ISPs. There is a group that have implemented filtering, there is a group that have fundamental philosophical objections to the process; there is a group that claim that they cannot afford the cost and there is a final group that will not take any action unless they are forced by legal mandate.

OK, the last group are clearly targeted by the Manifesto recommendations. The cost issue is a little more of a problem. The initial costs for large scale providers such as BT were not inconsiderable. Although costs have come down they remain potentially high for the smallest providers, particularly those who only have a few hundred, perhaps a thousand end user customers. For these the unit costs can be substantial and potentially more than the margin on circuits in the tight UK market. It is interesting to note a comment amongst the detail (the devil is always in the detail!) in the Manifesto (footnote 60 to be exact) with a suggestion that there should be central Government support for the smaller providers, perhaps included within the provisions of the upcoming Communications Data Bill. ‘The Crusher’ thinks that any such support would help those for whom the costs of filtering represent a disproportionately large element of overall provision and might be targeted at those with fewer than 1000 consumer connections.

‘The Crusher’ is aware of the pressure to close the gap. At the end of April ‘The Crusher’ had a meeting with a Home Office Minister who emphasised the Governments commitment to the 100% target and the need to see self-regulation deliver filtering across all consumer circuits within the next few months. If the self-regulatory model was to fail then there was clear indication that the Government would look to introduce mandatory legislation later in the year, perhaps in October. This would be likely to be seen as a non-contentious Bill that would attract cross-Party and media support.

The CCIS Digital Manifesto is a pointer for action by the ISP community. It is clear that the issue will not go away and that ISPs will need to take actions. There is now a European dimension to the issue with a proposal for a Framework Decision which includes, as Article 18, a clause requiring member states to introduce mandatory blocking of child abuse images.

The Manifesto recommendation that Govt. should include filtering as a requirement in public sector contracts is interesting - and would follow the inclusion of quality management and environmental management credentials. The forthcoming ISPA Awards will be interesting - and there may well be pressure on winners, particularly in consumer delivery categories to state and, if necessary, to justify their position in relation to the Govt. target and the Digital Manifesto recommendations.

In a week when we saw two digital reports, it may well be that the recommendations of the CCIS Digital Manifesto have a greater chance of becoming law.