The option of having parental controls implemented is pre-selected for new customers, but existing customers will have to opt in
By Sophie Curtis1:55PM GMT 16 Dec 2013 The Daily Telegraph
BT has turned on its new network-based filter, designed to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content online.
New customers will have to make a choice on whether or not to activate the parental controls when setting up their internet connection for the first time. The option of having the controls implemented is pre-selected and customers have to confirm that choice or actively choose to switch the controls off.
Existing BT customers will be contacted during the course of 2014, and asked whether or not they want to activate the controls.
Those who opt to switch on the parental controls will have to choose between three set filter levels – strict, moderate and light. All three filters cover pornography, ‘obscene and tasteless’ content, hate and self-harm, drugs, alcohol and tobacco and dating sites.
Moderate and strict also block sites featuring nudity, weapons and violence, gambling and social networking; strict also blocks fashion and beauty sites, file-sharing, games and media streaming. Additional websites can be added to the list manually to be allowed or blocked.
The filter can be turned off at specific times, for example to act as a “watershed”, and it can also be set to an additional level during “homework time”, for extra peace of mind when children are doing their homework.
BT has offered free parental controls in the past, but the protection focused on desktop computers and laptops. The new controls cover any internet-enabled device using home broadband, from PCs, laptops and games consoles to tablets and smartphones.
The new controls have been tested with a variety of different customers and interested groups, such as Mumsnet, the UK’s biggest network for parents.
“BT takes the issue of online child protection extremely seriously and we are very pleased to be able to launch the whole-home filter to help parents keep their families safe online,” said Pete Oliver, MD consumer commercial marketing and digital at BT.
“It adds to the many tools we already make available for free to our customers. We’ve been focused on the issue of online safety since we developed the world’s first Cleanfeed filter to block child abuse images and made the technology available free to other ISPs across the world a decade ago.”
The UK government agreed a deal with the four biggest internet service providers last month, which will see 90 per cent of UK homes able to limit access to adult content on all their online devices within two months.
TalkTalk, Virgin and Sky have agreed to introduce network filters, as well as BT, and have also agreed that all new broadband customers will automatically have the settings for family-friendly filters switched on.
By the end of 2014 all existing customers will be presented with an unavoidable choice about installing content filters which users will not be able to skip.
A recent report by Ofcom revealed that only 43 per cent of parents with children aged 5 to 15 have any filters in place on the family PC or laptop, with 13 per cent admitting they either do not know how to install controls or did not know it was possible.
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