“A joint report by the Home Office and the Department for Education,” reported the Independent this Saturday, “said that a public consultation found ‘little appetite’ for default filtering by internet service providers (ISPs).” The report, added the Independent, “was slipped out with little fanfare - without even a press notice announcing its release - following a high-profile campaign in support of default filtering.”
Civil liberty campaigners were delighted. Right wing press was less so. “Ministers reject calls to protect children from online porn...” headlined the Mail. But now, writing in today’s Mail, Cameron has described his new intentions. This, apparently, will not be ‘default on’ filters. “There’s a simple reason why we haven’t done this,” writes Cameron: “all the evidence suggests such a crude system wouldn’t work very well in practice.”
Instead, “With our system, when people switch on their new computer, a question will pop up asking if there are children in the house. If there are, then parents will be automatically prompted to tailor their internet filters.” But there’s no escape. “To make this doubly safe, if parents just repeatedly click ‘OK’ to get through the filter set-up quickly, then filters against the most obvious threats – like pornography and self-harm sites – will be left on.”
If the difference between this system and a default on filtering system isn’t clear, Cameron then says, “Let me reiterate the key points: with our new system, every parent will be prompted to protect their child online. If they don’t make choices, protection will be automatically on."
The issue is simple. “A silent attack on innocence is underway in our country today and I am determined that we fight it with all we’ve got,” writes Cameron. The solution is less simple, and security experts are scathing. “So, for those of us in the security community,” comments Ian Batten, a doctoral researcher at Birmingham University’s School of Computer Science, “it appears Dave is going to solve the problem of home users sharing computers and/or sharing accounts at a stroke.” All the issues associated with people using one login (or, more commonly, no logins) will be gone, he adds. “And, better, devices which don't have the concept of multiple users (such as tablets and smartphones) will now be locked to a single user and won't be shared around in households. Excellent! That's a major security issue solved at a stroke!”
As Dave H from Cambridge commented on Cameron’s article, “Controls are trivial to bypass...”