Australia moves toward mandatory ISP filtering

Government to introduce amendments to the broadcasting act, which will by 2011 require all ISPs to block certain material hosted on overseas servers.

by Liam Tung

December 15, 2009 5:48 AM PST

Mandatory ISP filtering legislation will be introduced in Australia around the middle of 2010, after which there will be a one-year period to implement and activate the filtering technology.

The Australian federal government on Tuesday announced it will introduce amendments to the Broadcasting Services Act, which will by 2011 require all ISPs to block refused-classification-rated material hosted on overseas servers.

As part of the new legislation, the government intends to explore what additional process could be implemented around how Web sites are added to the government's "Refused Classification" (RC) list.

The obvious contender for the new RC list's oversight is the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), which manages a list of locally hosted illegal content, and issues so-called "take-down" notices to local operators.

Read more of Mandatory ISP filter due mid-2011 at ZDNet Australia.

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