NZ online porn bill going ahead despite British backdown

The Internal Affairs Minister plans legislation restricting access to online porn after 5.15 million attempts to access porn from school networks were blocked in three months. Photo / 123RF

Officials have been ordered to prepare law changes restricting New Zealanders' access to online pornography.

Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin says she hopes to introduce the proposals to Parliament before next year's election.

"Officials are now looking at policy options for preventing harm to children and young people from online pornography," she said.

"It's a priority of mine and I really want to see legislation introduced this term."

Her statement comes as Network for Learning (N4L), which provides fast broadband to NZ schools, revealed that it blocked 5.15 million attempts to access porn from the school network in the three months to September 30.

But Martin's decision also comes just three weeks after Britain's Conservative Government decided not to bring into force a 2017 law that would have required internet service providers to install porn-blocking software with all new internet connections, forcing subscribers to "opt out" of the porn block rather than actively "opting in" to it.

The British law would also have required anyone trying to access any of about 500,000 known porn sites to provide proof, such as driver's licences or credit cards, to verify that they are not under-age.

British Media Secretary Nicky Morgan announced on October 16 that the 2017 law would be replaced by wider laws, yet to be developed, against all kinds of "online harm" including terrorism.

NZ First minister Tracey Martin wants to introduce legislation restricting access to online porn before next year's election. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Martin, a New Zealand First minister who is also the Minister for Children, said last year that she supported the approach that Britain was then taking.

In August this year she said she hoped a decision could be made "over the next four to six weeks" on whether legislation was needed in New Zealand.

A spokesman said she had now decided to press ahead with specific anti-porn legislation without waiting for decisions on wider issues.

"The porn work had been linked to a broader reform of media regulation. That is going to take some time. She's decided she wants to press on – i.e. it is a priority for her and [she] has asked officials to do work," her spokesman said.

"That still requires standard policy process and Cabinet consideration. But for her, the aim is to get legislation introduced this term."

In a written statement, Martin said: "A number of different approaches are required – some practical, some education and possibly some involving regulations. This includes preventing children and young people from accidentally being exposed to pornography and from deliberately accessing it in a digital environment, including at school."

She said five bills proposed by the Christian lobby group Family First, including compulsory porn-blocking software in schools and in Wi-Fi services in public places such as airports and libraries, "will be considered during the policy development process".

Research by the office of Chief Censor David Shanks last year found that 75 per cent of NZ boys and 58 per cent of girls aged 14 to 17 had seen porn online, either deliberately or by accident.

Moreover 69 per cent of teens who saw porn at least once a month had seen "violence or aggression", and almost half of teens who had had sexual relationships said they had "tried doing something [they] saw in porn".

Chief Censor David Shanks says Britain is doing the heavy lifting on regulating online porn, but NZ can be a fast follower. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Shanks said British regulators were talking to the big porn companies about how to make blocking software effective, and New Zealand would not try to get ahead of Britain.

"They have identified 500,000 commercial porn sites in the world," he said.

"It's always been our approach that they are breaking ground on this, they are doing the heavy lifting, and that presents us with an opportunity to be fast followers."

Internet NZ engagement director Andrew Cushen says government regulation of adult internet use would be "creepy". Photo / Supplied

But Internet NZ's engagement director, Andrew Cushen, said legislating to enforce porn-blocking software would be costly, ineffective, provide "a false sense of security" and was an unjustified "nanny state" intervention.

"What we risk is an over-engineered government imposition that actually involves some pretty creepy stuff in terms of asking every adult to ask for permission to see a range of websites," Cushen said.

Each household should be left to choose its own filtering software from a wide range of suppliers, he said.

Family First director Bob McCoskrie obtained the information that N4L blocked 5.15 million attempts to access porn from the school network in three months. Photo / File

Family First director Bob McCoskrie found out that N4L blocked 5.15 million attempts to access porn from the school network after N4L said last month that it blocked 2.2 billion attempts to access all kinds of internet material in the three months to September.

The porn access attempts represented only 0.23 per cent of the total blocks, which were mainly driven by students trying to play online games.

Network for Learning (N4L) chief executive Larrie Moore, pictured with students at Lower Hutt's Rata St School, says many internet porn access attempts were game-related. Photo / Supplied

N4L chief executive Larrie Moore said many of the "porn" blocks were also related to games.

"Many websites, especially gaming sites, harbour ads that are categorised as pornography. Each of these ads would be a recorded as a pornography block regardless of whether the user clicks on the ad," he said.

"Also, if a device has a virus, then the device may try to access inappropriate websites in the background [without a user's knowledge].

"And if this device is used at home to access inappropriate websites, and then brought to school with its web browser tabs left open to these sites, then these sites will be immediately blocked when the device connects to the school's filtered internet, and count toward our numbers."