UK ISP Asks Religious Groups To Set Parental Controls

Barence writes "A British ISP is inviting religious groups to help set parental controls for its customers. Claranet says it is recruiting volunteer 'Guardians' from a number of different organizations — including religious organizations, schools and child safety experts. A press spokesman for the ISP said that an 'Islamic advisor' was among the first batch of Guardians, but refused to identify them. The Claranet Guardians will be asked to choose whether they think 140 different categories of internet content are appropriate. Within those categories, the Guardians can choose to add or remove individual websites from the blacklists, which are created by a third-party company that Claranet also refused to name."

Official Claranet Soho response

[Claranet Soho]

Hi everybody, My name’s Alan Tavernor and I am Sales and Marketing Manager for Claranet Soho which is the division of Claranet that has just released the Childsafe product that is being discussed. I just wanted to clarify that the product we have created is about the free choice of parents to choose what their children can access online rather than to subscribe to any particular view ourselves. It has been designed to allow parents to easily protect their children whatever their knowledge level of the internet themselves. They can do this by either allowing or banning any one of 140 categories that exist for over 6 billion webpages on the internet. The option is there for parents to either choose their own selection or to choose the recommendations that are made by something called a Claranet Guardian. Claranet Guardians could be any one of a number of different people ranging from everyday parents, to education authorities, to relevant high profile people and to religious people. It’s worth noting that the religious angle is to cover the section of people in society who are religious and would find this beneficial rather than as a blanket for all. It’s really about increasing the level of choice for parents. The Childsafe service is an option available to any of our consumer Broadband subscribers but is not mandatory and is something that a customer can select to have when signing up for a service. I hope that clarifies everything but if anyone has any questions then please feel free to email me directly to [e-mail]. Kind Regards, Alan