ISPs start ‘Project Cleanfeed Canada’ against child porn

Canada’s biggest Internet service providers have teamed up with Cybertip.ca, country’s National Tipline that battles against Internet child sexual exploitation, in order to block child pornography sites from intentional as well as accidental access by Canadians.

Together the companies are launching a layout, called ‘Project Cleanfeed Canada’, to block such foul web sites that are hosted on foreign servers.

The Manitoba-based Cybertip.ca has long been involved in tracking and blocking child porn sites hosted within country. It is also a centralized web portal for the reporting of online child exploitation, luring and child sex tourism. It receives reports from children who are exploited through prostitution. The company also provides public with information, referrals and other resources to help Canadians keep their children safe while on the Internet.

The recent project to block foreign websites featuring child pornography is based on what British Telecom (BT) has done for almost two years in the UK through its "Project Cleanfeed". As per the company estimates, in year 2005, its filter system has turned down about 35,000 hits a day to more than 6,000 blacklisted websites.

The leading Canadian ISPs including Rogers, Telus, Bell Canada, Shaw, SaskTel, MTS Allstream and Videotron, in join efforts with Cybertip.ca, will block between 500 and 800 offending sites from access by their Canadian customers.

Telling about the plan that the companies said is engineered to prevent computer users from deliberately accessing certain Internet sites, Lianna McDonald, executive director of Cybertip.ca, clarified, “It's not the be-all-and-end-all solution, but it's a way to stop people from viewing children from being sexually abused.”

Although, details of how the automated technical system will work and help filter the sites were not disclosed by the companies due to security reasons, but they hinted that the filter system will work through reports from the public on sites considered offensive or illegal. After confirming the presence of such images on reported sites, Cybertip.ca will rate the sites and inform ISPs of which sites and IP addresses need to be blocked.

Cybertip.ca has reportedly gathered a list of offending websites and will share them with ISPs right away. The list will be updated daily and will prevent both intentional and accidental viewing of the sites, McDonald said.

In their move, Cybertip.ca and the ISPs will involve law enforcement agencies, which will investigate cases where Canadian sites are involved. "With child abuse and the Internet, there's no one foolproof solution," said McDonald.

Since its launch in 2002, cybertip.ca has shut down 1,100 websites, and is responsible for nearly 20 arrests related to the crime.