The moral of the story in my previous post about cars being preceded by men carrying red flags is that fear of the new often leads to unnecessary regulation. For this reason, in the context of the internet, we need to be careful about over-reaction and over-regulation. In particular, we now have, in Ireland, a multiplicity of red-flags around the internet, and I wonder whether they are all really necessary.

In November 1999 – arising out of the public debates surrounding the Child Trafficking and Pornography Act, 1998 (also here) and the publication of the Report of the Working Group on the Illegal and Harmful Use of the Internet in July 1998 – the Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI) established the Internet Child Pornography Hotline. It is now part of InHope (the International Association of Internet Hotlines) and of InS@fe, a europe-wide network of internet safety awareness bodies funded by the EU, which organises for example an annual Safer Internet Day (this year, it was 12 February last).

Soon thereafter, the Internet Advisory Board (IAB) was established by the Minister for Justice Equality and Law Reform in February 2000, with a general remit to supervise a system of self regulation by the Irish ISP industry and to pomote awareness of internet safety, particularly with regard to children. It has an independent chairperson and its members include representatives from the ISPAI, the Gardaí, children’s bodies, Government departments and public bodies. The IAB and the ISPAI agreed a Code of Practice and Ethics for the Irish internet industry, which the ISPAI published in January 2002 (pdf, analysed here by Tarlach McGonagle). More recently, it has published a series of Get with IT guides for parents to new media, filtering technologies, and social-networking sites. At last September’s launch of the first two (new media, filtering technologies), Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Brian Lenihan, trailed an announcement of an Office for Internet Safety (OIS). Then, at last month’s launch of the third and final guide (social-networking sites), he announced the appointment of Mr John Laffan as the Director of the OIS. Read the rest of this entry »