New Zealand bolts net filtering regime into place
If you thought that net filtering and grandiose firewalls were the exclusive preserve of West Island (or "Australia", as the locals like to call it), think again, as New Zealand shows that it, too, is ready to play its part in the great antipodean censorship stakes.
Last week, the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) announced it was setting up a filter system that will allow internet service providers to stop people accessing child pornography.
The filter system has already been trialled in hundreds of thousands of New Zealand households, and Internal Affairs deputy secretary Keith Manch confirmed that the voluntary system will block access to c.7000 websites carrying images of child sexual abuse.
As always, with such systems, there are concerns that this power could be abused: internet Safety group NetSafe welcomed the move, whilst warning that there could be concerns if the department later used the filter to block a wider variety of websites.
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