Study admits policing Net is impossible

Date: 17/10/1996

By Simon Coss

ENFORCING effective controls on child pornography on the Internet is a well-nigh impossible task, the European Commission admitted this week.

The best that could be realistically hoped for was the harmonisation of member states' rules on self-regulation, it added.

“No one can give an absolute guarantee of protection. If somebody wants to put illegal material on the Net, he could use somebody else's computer to do it and you would never be able to find him,” Industry Commissioner Martin Bangemann admitted yesterday (16 October).

In two joint documents - a communication and a Green Paper - approved by the full Commission this week, Bangemann and Audio-visual Commissioner Marcelino Oreja set out what they believe could be done to tackle the issue.

The communication calls on member states with self-regulation schemes in place to share information with their EU partners and urges the 15 to use existing legislation on the publishing of obscene material wherever possible.

But it concedes that such laws would have limited use when applied to the Internet: since nobody owns the system, who should be taken to court?

Other suggestions include developing 'filter' software packages to enable Internet users to screen out unwanted material. But this would be a purely voluntary measure and the same software could be used by Net surfers to select only pornographic material.

Finally, the communication proposes widening the debate on Internet control to international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation, the G7 and the United Nations, arguing that only a truly global response will be able to deal with a world-wide phenomenon.

The Green Paper looks at ways of protecting children and basic human dignity in relation to all new electronic media.