Week 5 DIGC 102 The regulation of Internet in Australia
Regulation
The Internet censorship regime in Australia comprises law and regulation at both Commonwealth and State/Territory Government level, apparently because the Australian Constitution does not appear to grant either level of government sufficient power to independently and fully regulate online content.
Commonwealth law applies to Internet Content Hosts (“ICHs”) and Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”), but not to content providers/creators or ordinary Internet users.
The law requires Australian ISPs and ICHs to delete content from their servers (Web, Usenet, FTP, etc.) that is deemed “objectionable” or “unsuitable for minors” on receipt of a take-down notice from the government regulator, the Australian Communications & Media Authority (“ACMA”) (formerly the Australian Broadcasting Authority (“ABA”) prior to 1 July 2005).
State and Territory criminal laws apply to content providers/creators and ordinary Internet users.
Some States/Territories have laws enabling prosecution of ordinary Internet users and other content providers for making available material that is deemed “objectionable” or “unsuitable for minors” and/or for downloading content that is illegal to possess. The particular provisions of these laws vary among the States and Territories.
Classification Process:
Classification/censorship decisions are made by applying Classification Guidelines established under the Commonwealth Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995. The Act is part of a co-operative classification scheme, adopted by the Commonwealth and States/Terrorities, for films, publications and computer games (although they have each gone down somewhat different paths in their implementation of the co-operative scheme).
Different classification/censorship guidelines apply to:
Films and Videotapes (and Internet content, including text and static images)
Computer Games (including online computer games)
Publications (does not apply to online content)
In developing Internet censorship laws, years after the establishment of the offline classification scheme and guidelines, the Commonwealth and State/Territory Governments decided that Internet content comprised of text and static images would be classified as if it were a cinema movie using the Classification Guidelines for Films, which are more restrictive than the Guidelines for Publications. Hence, when Internet content is identical to an article published in an offline magazine or book, the online and offline copies are classified under different Classification Guidelines. An article may be legal offline under the Publications Guidelines, but illegal online when classified under the Film Guidelines.
Classification decisions are made by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (“OFLC”) in relation to Australian-hosted Internet content. If the content is hosted outside Australia, the ACMA is empowered to guess what classification the OFLC would give to the content. (The ACMA is required by law to have Australian-hosted content classified by the OFLC but is not required to have overseas-hosted content classified by the OFLC.).
When content has been determined to be prohibited, or potentially prohibited, the ACMA issues a take-down notice and/or notifies approved filtering/blocking software makers.
Internet Regulation Groups
- The Internet Society: Provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organization home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards.
- The Internet Architecture Board. Responsibilities include Internet standards and oversight.
- Internet Engineering Task Force. A large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.
- InterNIC. Provides public information regarding Internet domain name registration services.
- PFIR-People for Internet Responsibility. A group of people concerned about the present and future operations, development, management, and regulation of the Internet.
- ICANN.org. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a technical coordination body for the Internet.
ACMA Approved Restricted Access System for content classified R18
ACMA Approved Restricted Access System for content classified R18
The ACMA (formerly ABA) approved restricted access system for R18 content requires sites, including non-commercial sites and those who charge no fee for access, to collect personal information from visitors to their site, such as credit card details or a copy of their driver’s licence or birth certificate, before granting them access to content classified R18.
The R18 classification includes a broad range of information that may be “disturbing” or “harmful” to minors. It includes “adult themes”, but does not permit non violent sexually explicit material (X18 classified) which is subject to take-down from Australian sites whether or not access is restricted to adults.
The Australian Broadcasting Authority released its decision on adult verification systems in early December 1999. This was the ABA’s final determination on procedures that sites hosting R18 classified material in Australia must implement to (supposedly) verify that site visitors are at least 18 years of age. The determination was an improvement on the ABA’s initial draft issued in late October 1999 but EFA believes the restrictions are still onerous, privacy-intrusive and chill freedom of speech. EFA’s response to the ABA Consultation Paper on Restricted Access systems outline our concerns about such systems.
References:
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/cens1.html
http://websearch.about.com/od/whatistheinternet/a/internetrules.htm
