Give telcos, ISPs more teeth in fighting child pornography, gov’t urged

Consumer advocacy groups urged the government to provide internet services providers (ISP) and telecommunications companies more teeth to combat online child pornography.

This was a more effective approach than merely imposing sanctions and more cumbersome regulations, they said in a statement.

“Harmonizing government laws to give telcos, ISPs and other online platforms enough authority to hunt down and purge harmful websites while protecting the data privacy of individual consumers will be more constructive,” CitizenWatch Philippines co-convenor Tim Abejo said in a statement.

Bantay Konsyumer, Kalsada, Kuryente (BK3) convenor Louie Montemar also wanted a more integrated approach.

“We believe that civil society and government combining forces with the telcos and ISPs is the optimal strategy to attack the OSEAC (online sexual exploitation and abuse of children) problem,” Montemar said.This would also strengthen Republic Act No. 9775, or the Anti-Child Pornography Act of 2009.Previously, Globe Telecom said it was spending $2.7 million on its content filtering system, which blocked a total of 2,521 domains with child porn related content.

Globe also partnered with “Kabataang Digital” project of the National Privacy Commission to provide age-appropriate support and help children understand the nature of privacy and the implications of the digital environment on their privacy rights. Converge ICT Solutions Inc. said it had installed firewall system and Secure Domain Name Solution to block websites with child pornography material and malicious content.

PLDT Inc. also announced investments of P2 billion so far this year in its cybersecurity and antichild pornography system. INQ