Police admit child porn site blocking list contains old addresses

NBI updating secret filter list to remove obsolete information

print this

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) admits that the list it has compiled to help Internet service providers block access to websites containing child pornography may no longer contain material that needs to be blocked. The NBI issued a statement on Thursday according to which the content of pages could have changed.
     "Assertions on the content of the Internet may be either correct or incorrect, owing to the constant changing of information", the statement notes.
     The police are currently updating their confidential filter list and removing sites from the list that do not belong there.
     
The NBI emphasises that its measures currently target entire sites. In the future, officials plan to provide telecommunications service providers with information that would make it possible to filter out individual pages.
     The NBI is not sure how quickly the companies will be able to implement this kind of filtering.
     
Public debate on the filtering of websites emerged when the NBI placed a site maintained by anti-censorship activist Matti Nikki onto its list of child pornography sites to be blocked.
     Nikki's site contains links to addresses on the list. Not all service providers act on the NBI list and put blocks on the web pages that it contains.
     Internet activists plan to hold a demonstration against online censorship on March 4th. An online petition calling for the resignation of Minister of Communications Suvi Lindén has been signed by more than 12,000 people.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Legislation considered to make filtering online child pornography mandatory (21.2.2008)
  Artwork critical of child pornography still under preliminary investigation (19.2.2008)
  Anti-Internet censorship website placed on police filter list over links to child porn sites (14.2.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat