| In Ireland, strategies
against illegal use of the Internet rest largely on
self-regulatory initiatives and two significant milestones
have been reached in the past months in this connection. In
January, the Internet Service Providers Association of
Ireland (ISPAI),
issued its first Code of Practice and Ethics.[1].
The beginning of the year also witnessed the publication of
the first report of the
Irish (child
pornography) hotline service, covering the period from its
inception in November 1999 to June 2001.[2]
1. ISPAI Code of Practice and
Ethics
The ISPAI was established in
1998 to coordinate the development of the Internet Service
Provider industry and to act as a representative body for
relevant interests. The guiding principles of its
recently-devised Code can be neatly summarised as end-user
empowerment, the responsibilisation of content and service
providers.
a) Purpose
It begins with a definitional
section in which “illegal” is held to include all content
“which is contrary to criminal law”. “Harmful”, in turn, is
defined as: “[C]ontent which includes any unlawful, libellous,
abusive, offensive, vulgar or obscene material or any
activities deliberately calculated to cause unreasonable
offence to others, which whilst not necessarily illegal, is
none-the-less considered inappropriate and deliberately
calculated to cause unreasonable anxiety inconvenience or
stress to others”. The Code therefore has a broader aim than
that of tackling material that is beyond the pale of legality:
it is also concerned with various forms of legal, but
nevertheless, objectionable material. It does not, however,
purport to be legally-binding or coterminous with the law;
rather, its role is merely to govern the conduct of ISPAI
Members.
b) Means
The General Requirements of the
Code strive towards ensuring that services (excluding
third-party content) and promotional material
(i) do not contain anything illegal, or misleading on account
of their inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omissions, etc.,
and
(ii) do not promote or facilitate any practices which are
contrary to Irish law.
Members are also required to
ensure that services and promotional material are similarly
devoid of any expressions of incitement to “violence, cruelty,
racial hatred or prejudice and discrimination of any kind”.
They are further obliged to do their utmost to draw customers'
attention to the provisions of the Code and in particular to
its complaints procedure.
c) Acceptable Use Policy
Members are also required by the
Code to elaborate and enforce an Acceptable Use Policy, the
purpose of which would be, once again, to work towards the
elimination of illegal and objectionable material available
online. This obligation includes specific measures concerning
the Irish hotline service (see 2. below), entailing compliance
therewith (in particular when requested to remove “specified
potentially illegal material from web-sites or newsgroups
being hosted by Members”) and the promotion thereof. In
addition, Members must follow best industry practices in
offering filtering software and services to customers. Optimal
privacy protection (to include adherence to the Data
Protection Act 1988, and the posting of a privacy statement on
each Member's main website) and optimal use of anti-spamming
software ought to be strived for and extensive cooperation
against hacking is also envisaged. As regards advertising and
promotional material, ISPAI Members are expected to respect
the relevant standards supervised by the
Advertising
Standards Authority for Ireland (ASAI), an
independent, self-regulatory body set up and financed by the
advertising industry.
d) Complaints Procedures
Detailed complaints procedures,
emphasising promptitude and reasonableness, are set out in the
Code. In the event of a Subject Member being found to be in
breach of the Code pursuant to a Complaints Hearing (the
ultimate culmination of the complaints procedure), a range of
sanctions may be applied by the Board of Directors of ISPAI,
having due regard for all relevant circumstances. These
include
- the requirement to remedy
the breach within a reasonable, specified time;
- the requirement of a
written assurance from the Subject Member concerning its
future conduct;
- the suspension of the
Subject Member; the convening of an Extraordinary General
Meeting of ISPAI to consider the expulsion of the Subject
Member and finally, where the Subject Member has been
suspended or expelled from the Association, the publicising
of that fact.
2. First Report of Hotline
a) Background
The hotline service, http://www.hotline.ie, was set up in
November 1999 by the Internet Service Providers in Ireland in
order to combat child pornography on the Internet. As such, it
was a response to the July 1998 Report of the Working Group on
the Illegal and Harmful Use of the Internet, appointed by the
Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.[3]
One of the mainstays of the Working Group's Report was the
promotion of self-regulatory mechanisms by Internet Service
Providers for tackling the problem of Internet use for the
dissemination of illegal and harmful material. Indeed, this
approach has also won the approval of the United Nations
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the
right to freedom of opinion and expression.
[4]
The publication of the
Working Group's July 1998 Report coincided with the enactment
of the Irish Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998 (Act
No. 22 of 1998, enacted on 29 June 1998).[5]
Section 5 of this Act renders it an offence for anyone to
knowingly produce, distribute, print, publish, import, export,
sell or show any child pornography; to knowingly publish or
distribute any advertisement for child pornography; to
encourage or knowingly cause or facilitate any of these
activities or to knowingly possess any child pornography with
a view to its distribution, publication, exportation, sale or
show.
b) Content
According to the First Report of
the hotline service, 671 complaints were lodged between
November 1999 and June 2001. The Report offers a break-down of
the nature and origin of these complaints: the overwhelming
majority concerned the content of webpages (as opposed to
e-mail, spam, chat, etc.) and were reported directly via the
hotline website (as opposed to being communicated by e-mail,
telephone, ordinary mail, etc.). The Report also explains the
modus operandi of the hotline service (the
investigation, tracking and management of reports, archiving
of material, publicising of its activities and staff
selection) and stresses the importance of its concerted
activities with other interested parties at the national
level, eg. the Internet Advisory Board, An Garda Síochána (the
national police force), Internet Service Providers and the
Data Protection Commissioner.
c) Network of Hotlines in
Europe
The Irish hotline service also
engages extensively with international organisations sharing
its objectives.
The INHOPE
Association, which aims to eliminate illegal material
(most notably child pornography) from the Internet by
facilitating cooperation between European Internet Hotline
operators, is a prime example of such an international
organisation. Furthermore, the continued growth of the Irish
hotline is very much in keeping with other developments at the
international level. The European Commission, for instance,
recently decided to accord the Safer Internet Action Plan a
two-year extension and an additional budget of 13.3 million
Euros.[6] This means that
the present Action Plan (1999-2002; with a budget of 25
million Euros), which has been central to the European Union's
efforts against illegal and harmful content on the Internet,
will now continue until the end of 2004. The objectives of the
Safer Internet Action Plan include the fostering of a safer
online environment, inter alia, by establishing a
network of hotlines in Europe and by promoting
self-regulation.[7] |
