Category Archives: Privacy

Age verification in the EU moving forward

Posted on July 16, 2021 by John Carr

The Advisory Board of euConsent held its first meeting last week. euConsent aims to deliver a framework of standards which will encourage the development of a pan-European network of providers of online age verification and parental consent mechanisms. Hugely important … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Default settings, E-commerce, Internet governance, Pornography, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation | Leave a comment

Legal threat to the UK’s Information Commissioner

Posted on June 13, 2021 by John Carr

This should not have been necessary, but I’m afraid it is. We all know about the damage exposure to porngraphy does to children. There are no serious voices being raised against that proposition, particularly in view of the types of … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Internet governance, Pornography, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation | Leave a comment

Government in a muddle over porn

Posted on May 15, 2021 by John Carr

On the morning of 11th May the Queen’s Speech was delivered and published. In the afternoon, Caroline Dinenage MP appeared before the Communications and Digital Committee of the House of Lords. Ms Dinenage is the Minister of State responsible for … Continue reading →

Posted in Age verification, Facebook, Google, Internet governance, Pornography, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation | Leave a comment

Great news for children coming out of Brussels

Posted on April 30, 2021 by John Carr

Last night in Brussels it was announced that a political agreement had been reached on the interim derogation. In plain English what that means is, pretty much immediately, we can go back to the position we all thought we were … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, Default settings, E-commerce, Facebook, Google, ICANN, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation | Leave a comment

Money counts. Children don’t. And 163

Posted on March 29, 2021 by John Carr

From around 2009 various online platforms voluntarily started using smart technical tools to detect, delete and report actual or likely child sex abuse images and detect and address potential paedophile behaviour. When the European Electronic Communications Code took effect on … Continue reading →

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Trends and Facebook on manoeuvres

Posted on March 1, 2021 by John Carr

Last Wednesday the USA’s National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) published its numbers for 2020. 16.9 million reports received in 2019  grew to 21.7 million in 2020. That’s up over 25%. Messaging platforms remain the largest source. 21.4 … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, Facebook, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The shame continues

Posted on February 8, 2021 by John Carr

Last Thursday afternoon the LIBE Committee of the European Parliament met. The proceedings are viewable. The meeting was scheduled to take two hours.  It had several items to discuss. The earlier ones overran. When the question of the derogation and … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, Consent, Facebook, Google, Internet governance, Microsoft, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Canadians, ethics and porn

Posted on February 6, 2021 by John Carr

A great many people in Canada are extremely angry and more than a little embarrassed at the fact that they provide a home and operational base for MindGeek, owners of the world’s largest pornography web sites, in particular Pornhub. That … Continue reading →

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Absurdities and atrocities

Posted on January 12, 2021 by John Carr

Voltaire famously said “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” History is littered with examples of this and last week in the USA we saw the same thing played out again. Lies and travelling trousers … Continue reading →

Posted in Facebook, Google, Internet governance, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation | Leave a comment

A very bad day for children in Europe

Posted on December 21, 2020 by John Carr

If you live in an EU Member State and you have used Facebook Messenger or Instagram Direct today you probably saw this message. “Some features are not available. This is to respect new rules for messaging services in Europe. We’re … Continue reading →

Posted in Child abuse images, Default settings, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Privacy, Regulation, Self-regulation | 1 Comment