Government to introduce approved website 'whitelist' to counter indiscriminate filters

The government is reportedly constructing a “whitelist” of websites to counter the sometimes-indiscriminate filters internet service providers (ISPs) introduced at its requests.

The filters have been heavily criticized for blocking sites run by charities that aim to educate young people about topics such as sex, drugs and health issues. A report conducted by BBC Newsnight last month found that all three of the major ISP-run filters current in place worked erratically. TalkTalk’s, for example, failed to identify 7 per cent of adult content online whilst blocking sites such as the sex education-focused BishUK.com and Edinburgh’s Women’s Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre.

Similar issues of unwarranted censorship were observed with the filters operated by Sky and BT The software works by scanning keywords to guess sites’ content; the government whitelist will ensure sites approved by the government’s UK Council for Child Internet Safety are not blocked.

David Miles, who chair’s the working group, told the BBC that although “the amount of inadvertent blocking is low,” he condeded that “if you are a charity and you deal with teenagers in distress that 1 or 10 matters to you."