Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Minister for Justice and Equality, I thank Senator Reilly for raising this very important matter.

The Internet is a vital tool and contributes to education, communication, commerce and the gathering of knowledge among its many uses. However, we are increasingly aware that there are dangers inherent in the use of the Internet, in particular for children and young people. Blocking is just one of the tools available to ensure the safer use of this vital resource. As the Senator may be aware, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, attended the announcement of a new Garda initiative on the blocking of Internet child pornography on Monday, 10 November 2014. On that day, a great deal of hard work on the part of the Garda and of the company UPC led to the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Garda and an Internet service provider company, UPC.

Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding, the company agrees to block illegal child pornography on its Internet network in Ireland in accordance with a list which is to be provided by the Garda. Under the new initiative, when a person attempts to access the illegal content, they will instead see a stop page. The stop page informs the person that the content that they are attempting to access is illegal. It also gives contact information if the person wishes to complain that the content is incorrectly blocked. No details of the person requesting the illegal content will be retained. The Garda is engaging with other companies with a view to signing further memorandums of understanding.

A review of the memorandum of understanding with UPC will be carried out by the Department of Justice and Equality and the Garda after it has been in operation for a period of six months. This new Garda initiative, along with the existing work of the hotline.ieservice, together fulfil Article 25 of EU Directive 2011/93 on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography.
There are various technical means of carrying out blocking and also filtering on the Internet, but the result is that the end user does not receive the requested material from the Internet. The technique which will be used in the new Garda initiative is called "domain name system, DNS, poisoning". Other techniques include Internet protocol address blocking, uniform resource locator blocking and packet inspection.
Different techniques have their own advantages and disadvantages but some techniques may have the effect of slowing down interface with the Internet to the extent that it would impede efficient use. There are packages which are made commercially available to the public and which carry out filtering on a basis chosen by the purchaser. Such packages can be useful to parents or others who wish to protect children or young persons from certain online content. Of course, it must be said that there are no guarantees that all unwanted items will be captured by blocking or filtering systems.
The question of the voluntary or involuntary nature of filtering and blocking comes up for discussion. General wholesale blocking of Internet content is not desirable as the Internet should be a resource available to all. However, when it is a question of illegal content such as child pornography, then it is justifiable to have the means to block such content. Under the new Garda initiative, once a high enough proportion of the ISPs engage in the new Garda initiative there should be less inadvertent viewing of illegal content. This should free up Garda resources to pursue those who deliberately collect and even trade in child pornography.
Child abuse is a horrendous crime and its depiction on the Internet compounds the offence. The Minister recently attended the ministerial meeting of the EU and US Global Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Online. That conference brought home yet again that these dreadful crimes against children are completely unacceptable. I look forward to hearing the Senator's views, which I will bring back to the Minister.