Australia’s peak technology experts group SAGE-AU warns that the Federal Government’s Internet filtering laws will fail to work because the technology was only tested on slow broadband services.

After this week’s announcement that the Federal Government will mandate Internet filtering next year based on ‘successful’ trials, SAGE-AU has disputed the validity of those results because the trials did not test ISP-level filtering on Internet access speeds faster than eight megabits per second (Mb/s).

SAGE-AU President Donna Ashelford said Internet filtering threatened potential degradation at ADSL2+ and fibre speeds. “The trial results provoke more questions than they answer,” she said.

“The decision to proceed with Internet filtering based on evidence from the trials is incompatible with the Government’s aims for the National Broadband Network (NBN). While the NBN aims to provide access to users at 100 Mb/s, no test result was at speeds faster than 8 Mb/s, despite the criteria for testing to be up to 12 Mb/s and higher. The likely degradation of higher Internet access speeds needs to be adequately tested.”

SAGE-AU cites Australian Bureau of Statistics research from June this year that reports more than 2.2 million Australian broadband subscribers have access to speeds of 8 Mb/s or faster (see http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/8153.0/ for details).

Ms. Ashelford said the report from the Internet filtering trials was unclear about sample sizes, which was vital to understand if its results were statistically significant. “Large numbers of participants would obviously have a greater impact on performance than a smaller number,” she observed.

“The only widely quoted figure from a test participant was a handful of clients, which did not produce any significant load. Significant sample sizes are essential to understand the effect that Internet filtering may have on service performance. Another concern is that the report admits that ‘a technically competent user, could, if they wished, circumvent the filtering technology’.  Anybody who uses Google could find ways to access censored content.”

Ms. Ashelford said every filtering solution tested had failed under “heavy traffic” sites on the Internet including YouTube videos already blacklisted by ACMA (the Australian Communications & Media Authority). “The results show that none of the filters coped with widely used technologies such as peer to peer, chat rooms or instant messaging,” she said. “No false-positive data was provided for ISPs which were only blocking ACMA-prohibited URLs, which was in the terms of reference.”

Ms. Ashelford said that despite the Government’s decision to proceed, Internet filtering would not prove effective either to protect children from inappropriate content or to stop distribution of illegal material. “SAGE-AU believes the funds allocated for Internet filtering would be better spent on activities that are proven solutions to the problems identified by the Federal Government,” she said.

1. Encouraging "Family-Friendly" ISP services: SAGE-AU proposes that the Government should support and promote the Family-Friendly ISP (Internet Service Provider) program, under which ISPs have offered 'clean feed' services to customers who desire them for several years. These Family-Friendly ISPs build their brands around their filtering services.
2. Improved parent education: The Government should invest in ongoing education to assist parents to ensure their children are not exposed to objectionable material.
3. More rigorous enforcement: SAGE-AU supports increased budgets for ACMA and the Australian Federal Police to identify and remove illegal content from Australian hosts.

Media assistance

Donna Ashelford on 0401 714 350 or email president@sage-au.org.au

About SAGE-AU www.sage-au.org.au

SAGE-AU is the not-for-profit professional organisation representing this country’s system administrators, the technology experts who keep computers and networks running.