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Robin Whittle 18 May 1998.
This excerpt contains the evidence of three members of Electronic Frontiers of Australia
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES
Monday, 27 April 1998
Members: Senator Ferris (Chair), Senator Quirke (Deputy Chair), Senators Calvert, Harradine, McGauran, Reynolds, Stott Despoja and Tierney
Senators in attendance: Senators Ferris, Harradine and Quirke
Terms of reference for the inquiry:
Evaluate the appropriateness, effectiveness and privacy implications of the existing self-regulatory framework in relation to the information and communications industries and, in particular, the adequacy of the complaints regime.
[12.12 p.m.]
AYNSLEY, Ms Brenda, Vice-Chair, Electronic Frontiers Australia, PO Box
382,
North Adelaide, South Australia 5006
BAKER, Dr Michael T., Board Member, Electronic Frontiers Australia,
PO Box 382,
North Adelaide, South Australia 5006
CHAIR—Welcome. The committee prefers all evidence to be given
in public, but you
may at any time request that your evidence, part of your evidence or
answers to specific
questions be given in camera, which means in private, and the committee
will consider any
such request.
The committee has before it submission No. 25 dated 23 January 1998.
Are there any
alterations or additions you would like to make to the submission at
this stage?
Ms Aynsley—No, thank you, Senator.
CHAIR—The committee has already authorised the publication of
your submission
under a separate volume. I now invite you to speak to the committee
and, at the conclusion
of your remarks, we have some questions for you.
Ms Aynsley—Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the
committee today. We
are pleased that the committee has embarked on an inquiry into self-regulation
and privacy
issues. However, we feel there are a number of important matters that
have not received
adequate attention in hearings to date.
Regulatory proposals by the Australian government in relation to new
communications
technologies are the exact opposite of what is needed in order to protect
the interests of
Australian citizens in the new information age. We have excessive regulatory
restrictions in
regard to the use of cryptography software, an important component
of electronic commerce.
We have futile attempts at censorship of the Internet which fail to
recognise the nature of the
medium and which try to treat it as if it were a broadcasting regime.
Yet, in the one area
where it needs to regulate, the government has walked away from implementing
privacy
legislation at the very time when it is becoming most needed.
EFA believes that attempts at content regulation of the Internet should
be abandoned on
the basis that publication of globally agreed illegal material can
already be prosecuted under
existing law and that regulations concerning contentious material are
inappropriate in a world
where cultural differences cannot be easily reconciled.
We consider that codes of conduct applicable to the Internet services
industry should
focus primarily on consumer protection matters and should not impose
liability on service
providers for content that was not originated by them. We consider
that it is time to totally
deregulate the unwieldy censorship classification system administered
by the Office of Film
and Literature Classification. Self-regulation works well in the television
industry and we see
no reason why that experience should not be extended to the publishing,
film, video and
computer games industries. The role of the OFLC should be reduced to that
of a watchdog
responsible for ensuring compliance with the relevant industry guidelines.
Another area requiring urgent deregulation is that of cryptography policy.
Australian
export industries are suffering as a result of the enforcement of archaic
Cold War restrictions
which effectively ban the use of mathematics. Encryption is essential
to security and
confidentiality of communications over public networks—which is the
Internet—and is
especially important in the emerging field of electronic commerce.
The amendments to the Privacy Act currently before parliament represent
a backflip in
policy at the worst possible time. Data matching and dataveillance—or
data surveillance—
are becoming increasingly pervasive and we strongly urge the committee
to recommend to
parliament the need for privacy legislation covering the private sector.
The recent deployment of calling number display, without agreed public
awareness
targets being reached, is an appalling breach of trust which warrants
the attention of the
committee. The fact that the TIO—Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman—does
not
understand the technology, to the extent of giving misleading advice
on silent numbers to the
committee in Canberra two weeks ago, gives little comfort that the
general public under-stands
the privacy issues involved. Mr Pinnock told your committee in Canberra
that silent
numbers were required to opt out of calling number display, when in
fact that is not true.
CHAIR—For the record, I should tell you that he subsequently did correct that.
Ms Aynsley—The recently expanded interception provisions of the
Telecommunications
Act should be reviewed so as to provide on-line users with a remedy
against unwarranted
privacy intrusion. Such a review is currently taking place in the United
States where it is
feared that similar imposition of interception facility costs on carriage
service providers—
who are Internet service providers—provides no disincentive against
overuse by law
enforcement agencies.
Finally, may we recommend to the committee that it urgently considers
an inquiry into
year 2000 compliance in the public sector. This burning issue is becoming
increasingly
urgent and it is somewhat alarming that the public sector is being
so secretive about its
progress in this matter.
CHAIR—Dr Baker, do you wish to make any additional comments?
Dr Baker—No.
Senator HARRADINE—Have you given any submission to the Joint
Committee of
Public Accounts inquire which includes an examination of EC and taxation
regimes?
Ms Aynsley—Not at this stage. The ATO invited selected people
to a committee for that
purpose, but we were not one of them.
Senator HARRADINE—This is a public hearing that I am talking
about of a joint
parliamentary committee.
Ms Aynsley—No, we have not, Senator.
Senator HARRADINE—Incidentally, what are your views about that
question?
Ms Aynsley—Which question, Senator?
Senator HARRADINE—Taxation on EC.
Ms Aynsley—I do not think that we have a formal view on that issue.
Senator HARRADINE—You say that the OFLC should be disbanded.
Are you
indicating that in future the Internet and associated on-line services
will be such that they
will be the predominant manner in which material or information is
provided into the home
and libraries?
Dr Baker—That is not an issue that we have taken up within Electronic
Frontiers
Australia. Certainly it will not be exclusive. Just as each new medium
that comes along
never replaces previous media—when the radio came along, it did not
replace newspapers
and when television came along, it did not replaced radio—I do not
think that the Internet is
going to replace anything. On the other hand, certainly its role will
increase, but exactly
where the balance is going to be, I do not know.
Senator HARRADINE—I am trying to assess why you would suggest
that the OFLC
should be disbanded.
Ms Aynsley—We are not sure that they get it right enough of the
time in the present
role that they have. We are almost certain that they will not get it
right given the volume of
material on the Internet. We would rather see a role for them as a
watchdog that can actually
monitor the proceedings of the Internet and the information that is
on the Internet so that
they can more readily deal with complaints, for example, about incorrect
classifications.
Dr Baker—What we have suggested is not that the OFLC be disbanded,
but that its role
be changed: that the media that it currently deals with move to some
form of self-regulation
and classify their own material; and that the role of the OFLC be reduced
to that of dealing
with material that is refused classification and to adjudicate on material
that should be
refused classification. This is partly in recognition of the fact that
most of the material on the
Internet is outside Australian jurisdiction and, regardless of what
regulation regime we
establish in Australia, there does not seem to be any point in placing
Australian content
under an Australian regulation regime if that is going to be more onerous
than the sorts of
regulation regimes that exist elsewhere in the world.
Senator HARRADINE—Why not?
Dr Baker—For two reasons: firstly, it will put Australia at a
disadvantage, as opposed to
the rest of the world; secondly, it will create a false expectation
in the community that
content on the Internet is regulated. The vast majority of the content
on the Internet will
never be regulated, particularly for as long as the United States maintains
their first
amendment. Very little content that will be regulated in Australia
will ever be regulated in
the United States—and for the present, certainly, and the foreseeable
future, the US is going
to be the source of most of the content on the Internet, or a large
proportion of it. We need
to come to terms with this fact that we cannot control the content
of the Internet, unlike the
control that is exerted on other media in Australia. We need to learn
to live with that and
find ways of dealing with it.
Electronic Frontiers Australia has been pushing for the last four years
for some sort of
education campaign to be run to inform parents and teachers of the
nature of the Internet and
what they can do to protect the children in their care. Forming some
form of content
regulation that is specifically for Australian content will not protect
children in Australia.
The other thing that is important to remember is that content is not
the only danger that
children face on the Internet. Probably more important is the people
they meet, and no
amount of content regulation will protect children from people. The
only people that can
protect children from people are parents and teachers. Parents need
to be provided with the
information and the knowledge and the wherewithal to be able to know
how to protect their
children, and instituting some form of Australian content regulation
will not do that.
Senator HARRADINE—You just mentioned to the committee that the
OFLC should
play a role of monitoring and ensuring that refused classification
material not be available.
Did I understand you correctly when you said that?
Dr Baker—Yes.
Senator HARRADINE—Then you said that if the American constitution
and decisions
of the Supreme Court of the United States of America are as they have
been previously, you
are going to have this sort of material readily available right throughout
the world.
Dr Baker—Yes. We have also suggested that a very limited amount
of material is very
widely acknowledged as not being desirable in the world. The only thing
that falls—
Senator HARRADINE—By whom?
Dr Baker—By virtually every nation that has laws about content.
Senator HARRADINE—You are talking about on-line?
Dr Baker—I am talking about in any media. The one category that
appears to have no
place in any country that has got legislation about any form of content
is child pornography.
Senator HARRADINE—In Australia, sexually explicit violent material
is a refused
classification.
Dr Baker—Yes.
Senator HARRADINE—There is a lot of that about in the United
States and freely
available in the United States on-line.
Dr Baker—What we are saying is that to the extent that such material
may be available
on the Internet there is no practical way of preventing that material
from entering Australia
apart from cutting off the Internet in Australia from the Internet
in the rest of the world.
Senator HARRADINE—Why? For example, with proxy ISPs you can have
a situation
where you could have a hotline and when people come across this type
of material they
can—
Ms Aynsley—You could have hotlines to report the instances and
occurrences of
material found on the Internet wherever it occurs—Australia or the
rest of the world. That
will not prevent that material, when it exists somewhere on a computer
somewhere in the
world, from getting to your computer if you go and look for it. It
is like broadcasting in a
sense; if you turn the television on and something nasty is there you
are going to see it.
Senator HARRADINE—I understand that. But action can be taken against the ISP.
Ms Aynsley—Why? What action?
Senator HARRADINE—The originator of the material.
Ms Aynsley—The content provider?
Senator HARRADINE—And the ISP.
Ms Aynsley—Why the ISP?
Senator HARRADINE—Why not?
Ms Aynsley—They are simply providing an infrastructure that allows
it to get from point
A to point B, without knowledge of that.
Senator HARRADINE—That is what I am saying. I am talking about
when they have
knowledge, when they are provided with the knowledge. Give them a certain
amount of time
to contact the content provider and, if it is not done, then both are
liable.
Ms Aynsley—Let us say it was content on a machine in America,
say, on America
Online—a well-known service provider over there. I am not familiar
with whether there are
any prohibitions in their terms and conditions, but let us assume that
there are not, for the
exercise. If I was an Internet service provider and one of my users
found that information on
the AOL machine, what would you expect me as the service provider in
Australia to do,
knowing that this nasty, illegal stuff is out there?
Senator HARRADINE—What would you expect them to do? Would you
expect them
to advise the content provider about it?
Ms Aynsley—No.
Senator HARRADINE—Why not?
Ms Aynsley—I would expect my user to go to the police and report
the fact that they
believe there is illegal material on the Internet.
Senator HARRADINE—No, we are not talking about illegal material, necessarily.
Ms Aynsley—I thought we were.
Senator HARRADINE—No. You were saying the OFLC should be disbanded—that
was
the word that you used.
Ms Aynsley—No, I do not think we said ‘disbanded’. We said their
role should be
disbanded and they should be reduced to ensuring compliance.
Senator HARRADINE—It is a summary of your recommendations on
page 2 that says
that the OFLC be disbanded and classification of all media currently
under the office’s scope
become the right and responsibility of the relevant industry bodies.
Ms Aynsley—In our opening statement we suggested that perhaps
they ought to have a
role as a watchdog of industry guidelines in a self-regulatory regime.
Senator HARRADINE—And, almost in the same breath, you said that
television
industry self-regulation works well. I do not know whether you have
been following the
evidence that has been given to us in respect of TV self-regulation.
Ms Aynsley—I noticed the evidence this morning from Young Media
Australia. I guess
there are probably pockets of problems and the children’s arena was
identified this morning
as one of them. But, on the whole, the infrastructure of self-regulation
within the broadcast-ing
region works reasonably well. You said that is the report that you
got from the minister,
that they see no problems with the—
Senator HARRADINE—I said it?
Ms Aynsley—I am sure you did.
Senator HARRADINE—I will have to wash my mouth out.
Ms Aynsley—I heard you say that, Senator.
Dr Baker—I think what you were saying, Senator, was that some
representative from the
industry or the ABA—I forget which it was—had said that the scheme
works well. You
were reporting that somebody else had said it.
Ms Aynsley—Yes, it was a report from someone else. You were not
attributed with the
authorship, Senator.
CHAIR—I wonder whether you could tell the committee a little
about your organisation:
how long you have been operating; whether you are a national organisation—it
would appear
that you are; how are you financed; and, essentially, your role and
function.
Ms Aynsley—We are a national organisation. In fact, Michael and
I are two of the
founding members. Michael is the brains behind the foundation. The
organisation was born
in Adelaide about four years ago, but we have always had national membership.
We actually
have had board members in every capital city, including Darwin. We
did have Hobart, but
the person there has moved on to other things, so we do not currently
have a Tasmanian
board member. We meet regularly via the medium that we defend and protect—Internet
relay chat—on a monthly basis to discuss policy issues and develop
the submissions that we
so often send to you for something to read in your spare time.
We have a range of members including Internet access providers, service
providers,
content providers and lawyers. Our present chair is, as you probably
know, a lawyer. We
have people from the university community who are largely Internet
users. We reach the
broader Internet user through their participation in a news group we
sponsor—and it is
several news groups—on Newsnet. We also publish a newsletter on a roughly
quarterly
basis.
We do appearances at various forums. Our present chair was at the economic
summit last
week in Canberra, and did some guest speaking at Monash University
on his way home to
Perth. We provide people for such forums wherever we can. We also participated
in a
number of committees—the gatekeeper project and the privacy committee
that Centrelink is
currently sponsoring. I myself was on one whose name escapes me—community
information,
I think—that was run, again by Social Security, a couple of years ago.
We are fairly
pervasive. We also work within other organisations, such as those that
are state based,
particularly the Internet associations, as well as the Internet Industry
Association.
CHAIR—Your funding comes from your members?
Ms Aynsley—Totally self-funded. We took a policy stand not to
accept funding except
from within our own membership.
CHAIR—I was interested to hear you say in your opening remarks
that you believed
self-regulation operates effectively and successfully in the media,
particularly in the
electronic media—and I think you referred to television specifically.
Do I take it then that
you are happy with the effectiveness and efficiency of the complaints
regime that is the
backbone of that self-regulation?
Ms Aynsley—I would have to say that I do not know enough to answer
that question
about whether the complaints mechanism is sufficient. I have never
made a complaint myself
about television content. I have opted for the off switch myself, but
other people would want
to take things further. I do not know how effective that is. From listening
to this
morning’s evidence, about 16 months to resolve a complaint seems a
little long to me—quite
long, in fact.
CHAIR—Dr Baker, do you have any comment to make on the effectiveness
of the codes
of practice and, in particular, the effectiveness of the complaints
regime?
Dr Baker—Not on the effectiveness of the complaints regime—it
is not an area that I
am familiar with. The main thing that we were talking about in effectiveness
is in terms of
the classification, that to a large extent the classification appears
to be what people expect.
Obviously, there are some complaints, and that is why there is a complaint
mechanism. To a
large extent, I think the classification that the industry does on
its own behalf is probably
similar to the sort of classification that the OFLC does. Obviously,
there are differences
because of the different criteria that are used.
CHAIR—I notice in your submission that you recommend that the
Privacy Act be over-hauled
and extended to include the private sector. Has your organisation formed
a view on
the Privacy Commissioner’s national principles for fair handling of
personal information?
Ms Aynsley—We attended the various fora around Australia—in Brisbane,
I think, in
Adelaide and in Perth—and contributed to the discussions that went
on there. The principles
framework, as far as it goes, I think we are favour of. The absence
of the legislation is the
point that causes us great concern. Leaving it to the private sector
to implement and police
its own privacy self-regulatory regime does not give us sufficient
confidence that electronic
commerce can be facilitated, for example. Countries in Europe are adopting
privacy
legislation and they will require us, in order to enter into partnerships
of a commercial
nature, to have such a solid foundation, and that is just not apparent.
It is not going to
happen.
CHAIR—President Clinton’s adviser on electronic commerce and
other things—
information technologies—told an E-commerce meeting that he did not
think there was one
single answer to the question of privacy in relation to the Internet
but rather four or five
different segments coming together to form an attack on the difficulties
arising from
electronic commerce. Do you have a similar view to that? Are you aware
of that speech?
Ms Aynsley—Are you talking about Ira Magaziner?
CHAIR—Yes.
Ms Aynsley—I am aware of the speech, but I am not really all
that close to the contents.
I do not disagree. We have recognised two aspects: one is cryptography
and the use of
cryptography in an E-commerce sense; the second is the privacy basis.
The underpinning of
all E-commerce, to us, is the privacy legislation because, as I say,
other countries that have
privacy legislation will choose not to interact with Australian businesses
and individuals
without that same guarantee.
CHAIR—I am wondering if your organisation has had any input into
the development of
the IIA draft code of practice for the Internet industry.
Ms Aynsley—Yes—been there, done that, many times since version
1. It is now on
version 3. Whilst we recognise and applaud version 3 as being a vast
improvement on
version 2 or previous, it still has a great deal of problems for us
because it attempts to
address the content issue. We hold very firmly, as you have probably
gathered, that content
belongs with the content provider, not with the industry who are passing
the content between
two or more points. We are still talking with IIA about the development
of their code. We
input at every opportunity. We have a fairly good relationship with
the executive director
and will continue to work with him.
I noted this morning that Toni Jupe, who is on the children’s task force
with me,
mentioned that the Internet industry is very keen on content. I would
have to say that the
industry is very keen on content as a result of the ABA’s on-line services
report which said
that the Internet industry and codes of practice ought to address the
content issue. I suspect
without that imperative the content issue would not have arisen within
the context of a code
of practice.
CHAIR—Can either of you give me a view on what particular segments
of the Austral-ian
population you believe are the greatest users of the Internet and who
in particular in the
community, as either a group of individuals or as organisations, benefits
most from Internet
access?
Ms Aynsley—Do you mean having access to using the Internet?
CHAIR—Yes.
Ms Aynsley—Higher education had it first, so I guess they are
still the most numerous
and represent the most traffic—that is the university sector, the 38
universities. Education
departments of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the ACT, of
course—they were
there first—and, to some extent, Western Australia, South Australia
and the others are
coming on line at a reasonably fast rate now, particularly the eastern
states. Tasmania has
been up there for quite a long time as well—it was one of the first.
So I guess it is the
education sector, you would have to say—higher education, and now the
secondary and
primary school levels are starting to use it.
My interactions with teachers in various locations indicate there is
a vast array of
opinions on how—as teachers with a duty of care to the children—they
access the Internet.
Other things being equal, and presuming they have got free access to
the Internet in terms of
numbers of machines for kids, some will actually do a preparation and
provide an intranet.
In other words, they will have already done the censoring and brought
the information into
the local school environment, and then will allow the kids to access
the product of that.
Others will say, ‘No; kids have got to learn how to respond appropriately
to the information
that they are going to find throughout their whole lives on the Internet,
so we’ll teach them
how to do that.’ And there is a range of responses in between those
two, which are fairly far
apart.
CHAIR—In terms of individuals in the community who might have
Internet, have you
formed a view on what those people would use the service for?
Ms Aynsley—As a professional, I provide Internet education and
support to individuals.
My oldest customer is 80 and she uses the Internet as compensation
for the fact that she is
riddled with arthritis and cannot get out very much so that is her
means of communication.
She uses the Internet relay chat type of facilities where she can actually
communicate via the
keyboard. She also finds a lot of information about her interests,
of which there are a
number. She has relatives and friends around the world, and she uses
that as a means of
writing letters to those people.
Other individuals or small businesses are starting to become aware of
it as a marketing
tool. They are not really interacting. They really do not care whether
it is on their computer
as long as they are out there because they know their competitors are
out there with respect
to web and marketing material. For those that use it as an interactive
medium, it is probably
still early days for electronic commerce purposes. Would you agree
with that, Michael?
Dr Baker—Yes. I would also add that in the business area, certainly
in the business I
am in which is software, I use it personally, not every day but quite
frequently, to look for
things that I need for just supporting the job that I do. I actually
go out and look for
information and obtain software, and so on, for use in the work that
I do. It is probably more
prevalent in the software industry than other industries at the moment.
But as the Internet
develops, more and more people in other industries, particularly people
in design areas, will
be able to go onto the Internet and find information that they use
in the products that they
are designing.
CHAIR—Are you aware of whether there is a section of the community,
large or small,
that may use the Internet for reasons of access to pornography?
Ms Aynsley—The short answer is yes.
CHAIR—Would you have any estimate on how large that group might be?
Ms Aynsley—Very small. I am sure you have been told in the past
a number of times
how much of the Internet is comprised of pornography. It is less than
10 per cent. I cannot
actually tell you what the percentage is, but the last I heard it was
something like six per
cent of all web pages contained pornography of one degree or another.
There would be a
dedicated core of people—the same people that would go to the newsagent
and buy Hustler
or Penthouse, or whatever the other ones are; I do not buy them so
I do not know. I do not
think it would vary from the normal distribution curve within the community
at large.
CHAIR—So you would disagree that a significant economic benefit
of having the
Internet connections in Australia is access to international pornography?
Ms Aynsley—The economic benefit is to that overseas company, presumably.
CHAIR—To the ISP.
Ms Aynsley—The ISP rounding traffic? They do not typically charge
for downloads, at
least not in South Australia, so it does not matter whether you are
going to a pornographic
site or to the zoological gardens on-line.
Senator QUIRKE—It has been put to us that a significant number
of people wish to
view pornography and, therefore, they would constitute a fairly substantial
client base for the
Internet subscribers, whatever the ISPs or the organisations that provide
the air time. It has
been suggested to us that it is a significant part of their business.
Dr Baker—We do not have any facts on that to hand. I think that
it is something that
we could probably investigate and ask questions about, and we could
probably find out
whether there are any surveys that have been done.
Senator QUIRKE—I just wondered what your response to it was.
CHAIR—It would be useful if you did have any information on it
if you could supply it
to the committee.
Senator HARRADINE—Where did you get those 10 per cent and six
per cent figures
from?
Ms Aynsley—All I said is that it is less than 10 per cent because
I am not sure what the
figure is. I was told that it was six per cent of web sites.
Senator HARRADINE—You were told. Has there been a survey done?
Ms Aynsley—There is information on the Internet about almost
all of these sorts of
things.
Senator HARRADINE—On how many web sites there are?
Ms Aynsley—Yes.
Senator HARRADINE—I know that there is information about that,
but how many of
those web sites are devoted to the porn industry, are porn web sites,
and how many hits are
there, et cetera, for each of the sites?
Ms Aynsley—I could not give you an address off the top of my head, Senator.
Senator HARRADINE—I understand that. The chair is really asking
the direct question,
I think, about not only the number of web sites but also the percentage
of those that are
devoted to the porn industry and, maybe, the number of hits that are
made.
Ms Aynsley—When you say ‘porn industry’, it understates the nature of the Internet.
Senator HARRADINE—I am talking about web pages.
Ms Aynsley—I know you are. But you are saying the ‘porn industry’
as if it were
something you belonged to by virtue of the way you make your living.
Pornography
publishers and pornography content providers are clearly not part of
the pornography
industry. In fact, someone was telling me recently about a person who
has a very profession-al
day job but also moonlights in providing pornographic images. I think
the person, who is
a lawyer or a dentist during the day, is providing strip shows at night
on the Internet. I will
give you the address later if you want it, Senator. So, to clarify
terms, are we talking about
publishers of pornography or are we talking about the industry?
Senator HARRADINE—No, I am talking about publishers.
Ms Aynsley—You are not talking about professional pornography
publishers, necessarily.
You are talking about anybody who provides images, or whatever.
Senator HARRADINE—Yes, that is what the chair was asking.
Ms Aynsley—We will take it on board and we will try to get the secretary—
CHAIR—It would be useful for the committee, in relation to other
evidence that we
have received, to have a yardstick to measure that evidence by.
Senator HARRADINE—On the question of interactive games on-line,
would you have
some idea of the growth of that area?
Ms Aynsley—They are very popular. There are a number of South
Australian service
providers, for example, who provide their own Quake as one of the games
that is on offer.
That reduces cost and increases speed and all those sorts of advantages.
They are growing at
a very rapid rate.
Senator HARRADINE—It would be interesting to see how many of
those were
interactive violent games that would not be classified by the OFLC,
or interactive porn
games which would not be classified by the OFLC.
Ms Aynsley—I am not aware of the second case. In the first case,
the ones that I am
aware of are already classified as computer games by the OFLC and have
migrated into the
Internet environment. They are the ones I am referring to.
Senator HARRADINE—Could you, perhaps, take that on notice?
Ms Aynsley—Yes.
Dr Baker—I do not know that we will be able to find out anything
about that, but if we
can, we will let you know.
Ms Aynsley—We will feed it back to you.
Senator HARRADINE—Thank you. There is a need to have confidence,
isn’t there,
amongst parents and others about material coming into the home environment?
If the public,
for example, were starting to be very concerned about material of this
kind coming over on-line
into the home and being easily accessed by teenagers, doesn’t that
raise questions about
the credibility or integrity of the net in the minds of those people,
rightly or wrongly?
Dr Baker—I do not think so. Surveys that have been conducted
of Internet users, as
opposed to surveys of the population at large, show that content is
not one of the major
concerns of Internet users.
Senator HARRADINE—Yes, I am aware of that.
Dr Baker—The issues they are more concerned about are things such as privacy.
Senator HARRADINE—Or being slow.
Dr Baker—Yes, the slowness.
Senator HARRADINE—If you are asking me—
Ms Aynsley—The performance issues—
Dr Baker—Yes, performance issues. In terms of issues that governments
might be more
concerned with, privacy tends to be of far greater concern than content.
Again, I do not have
to hand any of the surveys, but I am sure that I can find some of these
surveys—
Senator HARRADINE—We have been provided with some of those. Your
main
membership comprises of ISPs—
Ms Aynsley—No, not at all.
Dr Baker—They are individuals.
Senator HARRADINE—But you would have a number of ISPs, wouldn’t you?
Dr Baker—Some of our members work for ISPs, but we do not have
any ISPs as
businesses that are members.
Ms Aynsley—In fact, our only corporate member is the PCU group
out of Canberra,
isn’t it?
Dr Baker—Yes.
CHAIR—Thank you very much, Dr Baker and Ms Aynsley. Your answers
have been very
informative. We would appreciate any of the extra information that
you can provide to the
committee in due course. Thank you.
Proceedings suspended from 12.56 p.m. to 2.11 p.m.
HEITMAN, Mr Kimberley James, Spokesperson, Western Australian Internet
Association
Incorporated, 1/38 Mason Street, Cannington, Western Australia 6107
CHAIR—Welcome. The committee prefers all evidence to be given
in public but you
may at any time request that your evidence, part of your evidence or
answers to specific
questions be given in camera—which means in private—and the committee
will consider any
such request. The committee has before it submission No. 13, dated
6 January 1998. Are
there any additions or alterations that you would like to make to the
submission at this
stage?
Mr Heitman—No, thank you. I would just like to make a few points about the association.
CHAIR—The committee has already authorised the publication of
your submission
under a separate volume. I will now invite you to speak to the committee
and at the
conclusion of your remarks we will ask you some questions.
Mr Heitman—The purpose of my appearance today, and I appreciate
the opportunity of
doing so, is to put before the committee the Western Australian experience,
which has been
quite different from that in the other states and territories of Australia.
One of the important
things about Western Australia is that quite early in this debate we
focused on what could be
achieved by Internet service providers within Western Australia both
to address community
and consumer concerns in relation to the provision of Internet content
and also to make sure
there was a proper legal framework under which Internet service providers
could act. It was
very important for the industry locally to be happy that it knew what
the rules and laws were
relating to the provision of Internet access.
The Western Australian Internet Association was set up in the middle
of 1995 almost as
a direct response to the Department of Communications and the Arts
report on the regulation
of bulletin boards. It was a response to that report that galvanised
the local Internet industry
into seeking, firstly, to form an association of both service providers
and Internet users and,
secondly, to lobby the government of Western Australia and the federal
government to try to
determine rules for Internet content that the industry could work with
and that the users were
happy to accept.
In Western Australia the WA Internet Association is quite prominent
in the debate. We
have regular and direct contact with the Western Australian government,
and WAIA has a
seat on the information industries working group that was established
through the Depart-ment
of Commerce and Trade in Western Australia. That allows us input into
government
policy at a high level.
We have also had the opportunity during the drafting of the Western
Australian Censor-ship
Act to have input prior to the draft being presented to parliament
and have discussions
with the office of the state censor to establish what rules of conduct
were appropriate for the
Internet as opposed to other media. As a member of what I would consider
to be quite a
strong and vibrant organisation, notwithstanding that we are geographically
located only in
Western Australia, I am inviting the committee to examine the Western
Australian experi-ence
to see whether it can provide lessons for the rest of the country.
CHAIR—Before we go to questions could you tell us a bit about
your organisation: how
long ago it was established; the number of members; how it is funded;
how often you meet;
and the role and function of the organisation?
Mr Heitman—The organisation was established at a public meeting
in July 1995. We
then went through the process of incorporating under the Western Australian
Associations
Incorporation Act to be established as a non-profit organisation with
its own legal identity.
The requirements for that were completed in November 1995. At present
the WA Internet
Association has approximately 150 members, of which 14 are Internet
service providers.
Those Internet service providers represent companies such OzEmail,
Iinet, omen, Wantree
and others within Western Australia. We probably represent about 50
per cent of the
commercial accounts available in Western Australia.
Our funding comes entirely from membership subscriptions and we have
a rising scale
for several categories of membership, from a user membership which
is $20 per year, and
therefore within the realms of most people, up to Internet service
provider membership
which is $500 a year and carries the obligation to comply with the
WAIA code of conduct.
Senator HARRADINE—Mr Heitman, you mentioned in your introductory
comments
that your association has been able to have input at the highest level
in Western Australia on
policy. Are you happy about that?
Mr Heitman—I think it is appropriate that the government of Western
Australia has
taken advice in the new areas of Internet regulation. There are a number
of technical issues
which are difficult to comprehend if you are using the paradigms of
the broadcasting or the
publishing industries and therefore it has been useful, I submit, for
members of the Internet
industry to be able to give input to government at that sort of level.
At this stage our input is
given very much alongside that of the other information industries,
such as content providers,
infrastructure and hardware vendors and so forth. So we are part of
the information
industries as opposed to a private brief.
Senator HARRADINE—The outcome in terms of regulation and legislation
is satisfac-tory
to you?
Mr Heitman—The industry finds the present regime in Western Australia
satisfactory
with just two exceptions. The first is that, owing to cooperation between
the state and federal
governments concerning the uniform approach to content regulation,
we have not been able
to persuade the Western Australian government to allow the gazetting
of our code of conduct
as a recognised industry code, and that has been while the rest of
the country is grappling
with the same issues.
The second point on which there is some debate within the local industry
is the degree of
cooperation in line with the level at which content regulation is set.
There was, for example,
a thought that the Office of Film and Literature Classification would
be moving quickly on
Internet classification, whereas at this stage it does not appear that
the OFLC has moved or
will move on that.
Senator HARRADINE—What is your association’s view about that?
Mr Heitman—The position is that we would really prefer Internet
illegal material to be
a yes and no question rather than a question of ratings and classifications
which may be
subject to individual interpretation, so that ultimately the OFLC’s
role in classification is not
considered to be worth pursuing. The sorts of ratings for films and
videos do not translate
well to Internet content. I will comment on the matter of convergence
shortly but for the
time being Internet content really does defy rating in the way that
videos can be rated. For
that reason we would prefer instead for the Commonwealth perhaps to
set the guidelines of
what represents unlawful transmission, to clarify the situation under
the Crimes Act section
85ZE but otherwise for there to be no federal classification of the
Internet content planned. It
would be an Internet illegal standard, which is quite different from
any other rating standards
to be adopted.
Senator HARRADINE—Did you hear Young Media Australia’s evidence this morning?
Mr Heitman—Yes, I listened with much interest. I am appreciative
of their efforts in
that particular field.
Senator HARRADINE—You are aware of their concern that many parents
of children,
whether they be young children or teenagers, do not realise what is
on the Internet. I took
that to mean that many of the children were more capable and able to
operate far more
effectively on the Internet than their parents.
Mr Heitman—This is a common experience, but not a uniform experience, Senator.
WAIA has tried to approach the problem from the other way. In the absence
of any capacity
to make the Internet safe in the sense that many parents would like
it to be safe for children,
we have tried instead to focus on the point of delivery, which is the
home itself, to make
parents aware, firstly, of what is available on the Internet and, secondly,
what preventative
tools they may use, including software and hardware blocks, to limit
the children’s exposure
to this material.
We have done this in two ways. Firstly, we are running free weekly seminars
for the
public so people can come along and learn about the Internet and what
is there. We quite
explicitly take them through all of the tools available for the Internet,
not just the World
Wide Web. I think there has been too much concentration on the World
Wide Web. The
really bad material is not being distributed mostly through the World
Wide Web. It is being
distributed through Internet Relay Chat or by file transfer or by what
might be called
Sneakernet, which is the distribution of CD-ROMs and floppy discs after
contact has been
made on the Internet. So we are focusing on all the dangers to children,
not just the obvious
pictorial dangers.
Secondly, we have been making sure that people who are interested in
developing
strategies within their own homes or schools are given the best and
most current information
on the rating and labelling schemes which exist and the software which
relies on those rating
and labelling schemes. As I mentioned when WAIA appeared before the
committee which
preceded this one, we are not yet confident that the ratings and labelling
schemes are
developed to the extent that they can be part of a legal framework.
The reason for this is that
they do not achieve the outcomes that they are seeking to. Therefore,
we feel very strongly
that to place them within law at this time is premature. I am thinking
particularly in terms of
the use of software filter programs, such as Net Nanny.
Nonetheless, it is important that the public is aware of the state of
maturity of those
programs. It is part of WAIA’s task to inform the public of those software
programs which
are available and our particular recommendations on their use. For
example, some are more
effective when other strategies are employed simultaneously.
Senator HARRADINE—Do you have anything further to say about those
programs? We
have been given information that they are somewhat limited.
Mr Heitman—Their limitations are so poor, Senator, that it is
really difficult to
appreciate how little they do until you compare them with the statistics
of the total web. For
example, it is considered at this stage that there may be upwards of
150 million web sites on
the Internet. The very best of the software programs block 30,000 of
those sites. I think it is
beyond doubt that the vast majority of the content available out there
which people may find
controversial or which individual state and federal governments may
find illegal is not being
blocked by these programs. The second aspect of them is that information
which is blocked
with the programs cannot be verified or checked by the users. As a
result, once you install
such a program, you do not know what you are blocking and why. There
have been some
very unfortunate outcomes, such as the National Organisation of Women
being a blocked site
or the word ‘queer’ being routinely blocked or the words ‘Virginia’
or ‘Saturday’, and many
other sorts of words, simply because of a kludgey, text based filter
system.
I do not, as a parent, let alone as someone who has some expertise in
the Internet area,
recommend their use for unsupervised Internet access by children. At
the end of the day,
they are nothing more than a barrier to an unsophisticated child. For
a sophisticated child,
they are no barrier at all and may, in fact, give a false sense of
security in a school or a
home.
CHAIR—Are you suggesting that a sophisticated child might see
that opportunity as a
great challenge?
Mr Heitman—Anecdotally, we hear even worse. There is something
of a cottage
industry among secondary school students. For a fee of $5 or so, they
will disable the Net
Nanny on the home computers of their friends. This is the trouble.
The Internet treats
censorship as if it was something broken and easily routes around it.
For example, if you are
blocked in one particular web server which has Net Nanny attached to
it, it is a matter of
absolute simplicity to download another web browser program and completely
circumvent it.
If every single web site was blocked at the ISP level, as they attempted
and failed to do in
China, under those circumstances the information would simply pass
over IRC or by file
transfer in an absolutely seamless operation.
One of the difficulties we have is whether or not software labelling
and rating are
mandated by government legislation or by industry code of practice.
They will have the same
outcome: no impact on the global Internet, high impact on Australian
service providers. As a
member of the industry, it is that disparity I am seeking the Senate
committee to take into
account in its recommendations. No matter what is done at an Australian
level, the material
on the global Internet will be unchanged.
The PICS and RSAC-I system is the one that has been promoted strongly
by the
Australian Broadcasting Authority as a model for future browsing. I
have a lot of trouble
with that system in that it rates text as if it were an image and rates
images without any
context, so we have the situation where the Department of Anatomy and
the Louvre and
pornography are all rated the same for nudity. I think that is very
misleading.
The second aspect is that RSAC-I is simply losing the race for rating.
Their web site has
not been updated for 14 months, which is not a good sign for an Internet
site. In any event,
they said at that stage they had rated 50,000 sites and were rating
approximately 5,000 sites
per week. My best and most recent information on the number of web
sites on the Internet
was updated at the E-Commerce Summit two weeks ago. It was there that
sites were being
put on-line at the rate of 10,000 per day. If rating was a compelling
strategy, unfortunately
we have the situation where it is losing the race internationally.
At this stage, less than one
per cent of the total content available on the Internet is rated under
that system. I would
suggest that it is losing the race, day by day. I think to make that
the cornerstone of
Australian regulation is a very bad policy move.
CHAIR—I take it you were a delegate at the E-Commerce Summit?
Mr Heitman—Yes, a participant.
CHAIR—Would you have any comment to make on Ira Magaziner’s speech
and the
suggestions that he made for a basket of measures to ensure that the
Internet could be
modified for families?
Mr Heitman—He has the American experience which, of course, is
quite different from
ours. In Australia, parliament has the right to abridge free speech
as it thinks fit. That is the
context all of the people addressing this committee must appreciate.
He recommended the
light-handed approach on the basis that that is more likely to be successful.
He gave the
example of an Internet tax. An Internet tax on purchases made over
the Internet at the rate of
one per cent will quite probably be complied with. If it is set at
a rate of 30 per cent, then
people will take steps to evade it. The same thing may be true of Internet
content.
Right now we have, informally, a very good system for reportage on child
pornography
in the sense that, once it becomes known to the authorities in any
state in Australia, it is
reported to the appropriate jurisdiction where that content is actually
being hosted. As a
result, Australia has played a part in the cracking of international
rings. However, if you
contact Interpol and say there is what might be considered non-violent
erotica available in
America or in Finland or wherever, they will tell you that they cannot
be bothered. They do
not have the resources to deal with merely controversial content. They
wish to focus only on
the narrow range of criminal content, such as child pornography.
As a result, when you are prosecuting Internet content, if you keep
the range of materials
prosecuted as narrow as possible, it will be far more successful than
trying to rate everything
that you would want to rate for 6 p.m. television. As a result, if
you concentrate on Internet
illegal material—and I would suggest that child pornography is the
classic case, but certainly
sadism and other degrading pornography might be considered for international
cooperation—
under those circumstances there is a real chance of making content
regulation work. If,
however, we say to the rest of the world, ‘You must rate by Australian
standards,’ we will
be a laughing stock.
CHAIR—To what extent would you see pornography as being an active
part of the
Australian Internet industry?
Mr Heitman—I think it is an important part of the growth of the
industry in the sense
that the technological advances for e-commerce have manifested themselves
first in the pay
sites, such as the pornographic sites. Many of the protocols for secure
financial transactions
have commenced by reason of people subscribing to American based pay
pornographic
services.
But it has to be noted that the pay pornographers are very much in the
minority on the
Internet. It is not an important part of the Australian Internet at
all, and as a result we have
the situation where the suggestion that it constitutes an important
part of Internet commerce
in Australia, I think, is incorrect.
I did note the question that was put to the earlier speakers about the
suggestion that the
provision of pornographic services is part and parcel of the ISP’s
growth and therefore that
the ISP industry has an interest in promoting pornography for commercial
reasons. With
respect, I think that is something of a smear. It is as if to say that
people buy a telephone
line so they can make abusive phone calls. I think that is quite false.
Certainly, I think there are a lot of people in the community who like
the idea of the
biggest library in the world and the ability to talk to any person
on any subject. But to
whittle that down to a quest for pornography, I think, is a smear.
CHAIR—We put it to the previous witness because it had been put
to us by previous
witnesses that access to pornography on an international scale actually
underwrites the
success and growth of the Internet industry in Australia.
Mr Heitman—I would think exactly the opposite, as a matter of
fact, because pornogra-phy
does tend to be high bandwidth, and this is one of the things which
is a very important
aspect of Internet life. From an ISP’s point of view, he would like
to have lots and lots of
customers who do nothing but send e-mail, because that is the least
pressing on the band-width
that he buys from Telstra. If, however, many people are accessing United
States
pornography sites and downloading lots of data, that is being paid
for by the ISP at not less
than 19c per megabyte. As a result, the downloading of pornography
from overseas is not in
the ISP’s financial interests at all.
However, this is touching on the convergence issue, because it has been
suggested that
one of the reasons we have to get the ground rules right now is that
in times to come the
Internet will deliver services we presently obtain through newspapers,
radio and TV. I would
just like to inject a note of scepticism with that proposition, because
one thing that it does
not take into account is the vast difference between the radio bandwidth
available to TV and
radio, and the fairly narrow bandwidth allowed through the copper wires
which make up our
telephone service.
For example, to transmit video takes 2.2 million bytes per second. Most
people on the
Internet in Australia are operating across telephone lines which are
really only rated for, say,
28,000 bytes per second. As a result, we have the situation where,
even though the technol-ogy
exists and it is plausible that there be video coming through the Internet,
as a matter of
sheer bandwidth and the sort of access that people have in Australia
it will be many years
before anybody has Internet access that fast.
Right now we have the situation where video sent across the Internet
is like smoke
signals; it is a very unreliable sort of technology. Even recently
when some Australian
webcam services provided a fixed camera position of, for example, the
Gay and Lesbian
Mardi Gras march, you would get perhaps five seconds of video and then
30 seconds of
hand shaking while they tried to re-establish the connection.
Across the Australian telephone system, wide-band communications are
just not possible.
In the future perhaps we will all be cabled, but at this stage the
cable roll-out is not that fast
or that swift and it is not that cheap. For the time being I think
you can take the Internet as
being, in its classic case, e-mail and web services rather than video.
CHAIR—If you were to define the three major challenges facing
your organisation
operating within this emerging environment, what would you define those
to be?
Mr Heitman—Our organisation is trying to promote the Internet,
both for the interests
of the industry and the users, and we are unique in that; we do acknowledge
that we have
the left hand and the right hand of this. What we are trying to do
is, firstly, establish the
Internet as being accessible by all Australians. For that end we are
hoping to see some
cooperation with government for the opening up of public facilities
for this purpose, such as
Australia Post offices, which have a presence in many rural areas which
are not well
serviced by private industry, and such as the Centrelink service being
extended through the
use of kiosks and such like. So public access would be the first issue.
The second most important issue is the interplay between privacy and
security. There is
no doubt that people out there would love to do business on the Internet
if only they thought
they were able to do so in full privacy and with full security. Therefore,
there needs to be
policy made by federal government on those two issues.
Finally, what I would like to see more of on the Internet is more Australian
content.
What we really have to encourage are people operating value added services.
At the moment
we have a lot of amateur web pages or small business web pages which
are embryos of good
things to come. What we would like to see are a lot more content providers
so that the rest
of the world is paying us for information and not the other way around.
CHAIR—I thought you might have mentioned the effectiveness of
a complaints mecha-nism.
Do you have any comments on the effectiveness and efficiency of the
existing
complaints regimes? And what role is your organisation playing in the
development of that
system?
Mr Heitman—Thank you for that question. It is very important
for people to have
confidence in the new industry. It starts off from the Telecommunications
Act, which sets
upon ISPs certain privacy requirements under the new sections so that
the people can be sure
that the ISP is not going to be giving away their details willy-nilly.
That is already in place.
Secondly, in relation to complaints about consumer issues, the Telecommunications
Industry Ombudsman has a statutory role. But I am also pleased to say
that the WA Internet
Association has a more effective and, from what I have heard today,
a much speedier
resolution mechanism. As a board member and one who is on the discipline
committee, I
have a lot to do with the complaints that are made to WAIA based on
consumer issues—
exclusively consumer issues, I might say—and our way of responding
to them. We have yet
to fail to settle a matter completely within seven days.
The report has usually been sent out within 24 hours to the various
stakeholders in an
argument to try to find position statements and to resolve them. I
really think there is no
government department that could work with that speed. The advantage
of it is that we have
the situation where, if there is a matter of concern by a WAIA member,
the process can be
activated by either a member of the association as complainant or a
member of the associa-tion
as the person against whom the complaint is made. So we have a situation
where we are
quite prepared to arbitrate with the general public.
So far, we have yet to have a matter where a mediation has not solved
the problem
within seven days. However, the mediation is not enforced on the parties.
If they are
dissatisfied with it we have the back-up of an arbitration system we
have arranged with the
University of Notre Dame law school. What they will do is provide law
staff to help take the
step to a hearing, if required. We are pretty satisfied that we can
handle anything the TIO
could handle or, indeed, the ABA. Bear in mind that we have yet to
receive a complaint
about content from any member of the public, and as a—
CHAIR—What sorts of issues would you get complaints about typically?
Could you take
us through a case study?
Mr Heitman—Indeed. Perhaps the best example we have had recently
is a person who
had troubles with the Internet service—it had been losing carrier—and,
as a result, his
Internet experience was confined to a few minutes at a time. He contacted
the ISP and was
talked through the configurations over the telephone. Amongst the things
that changed was
the telephone number for contacting the ISP. The user lived in an outer
suburb. As a
consequence, all phone calls brought under the new number attracted
a community call rate,
which is a little less than STD but nonetheless more than a local call
and a timed call. As a
result, the complaint was brought to the WAIA committee by an e-mail
sent to the commit-tee
list—all our details are on our web site; that is how we get our complaints
usually—to
say, ‘I have just got a Telstra bill for $240. I think the ISP should
have told me this was
coming. Therefore, I want a refund of this money.’
I took the complaint and, as a consequence, I contacted the ISP and
said, ‘This is the
issue that this consumer has raised with us. I would like you to address
this consumer’s
concerns and get back to me within 24 hours.’ The ISP did so and said,
‘After discussing the
matter with our consultant, it is possible, if not probably, that that
advice was given,
therefore what we will do is give the man six months free access,’
which amounts to
practically the same sort of bill. Therefore, that was considered their
proposal for settlement.
I put that to the consumer and he said, ‘Yes. That is fine by me.’
Case closed. We were in
and out of that one within three days.
At other times we have had complaints about, for example, interruptions
to service due to
technical faults and problems. Probably where we were most useful a
little while back was
when an Internet service provider went bankrupt suddenly and as a result
administrators were
called in. The WA Internet Association got in touch with the administrators
straightaway
and, very quickly, one of our members was able to negotiate with the
administrators to take
over the member’s database so that the whole ISP and their 300 or 400
members were able
to be looked after straightaway. That is the sort of thing we, as an
industry association, like
to do and we like to do it within a week by e-mail.
CHAIR—That is very impressive. On the sorts of complaints, could
you give us how
many complaints you might typically get in, say, a month? You have
given us a couple of
good case studies there, but what sorts of categories would they fall
into—the sorts of
categories like quality of service?
Mr Heitman—We have had less than a dozen in 2½ years.
CHAIR—My goodness!
Mr Heitman—And they have all been over consumer issues. There
was one issue where
a user was upset that he had been kicked off a system for what the
ISP considered to be
misbehaviour.
One of the things we are also doing at this stage is drafting, in consultation
with other
ISPs and also with the Internet community, a draft Internet service
contract which will be
one step below a code of practice. It is actually the contract between
the user and the ISP.
The object of the exercise will be to state, ‘This is what abuse means.
This is what your
download means. This is what you are required to do to be a person
in good standing on this
system. These are the references for what constitutes illegal conduct.
This is a reference for
parental tools and help. This is a reference for your obligations under
the Censorship Act.’
CHAIR—Committee members might find that a useful document to
look at.
Mr Heitman—Yes. It is a work in progress. I would be pleased to give
you our first
draft. I will e-mail that as soon as I return to Perth.
CHAIR—That is very good. I am very impressed by that. I think
that is the first
reference we have had to a document like that, so it would be very
useful for us to have a
look at it.
Mr Heitman—At this stage in the industry it is quite often the
case that there is a
written term and agreement, but many of them are not satisfactory from
a user’s point of
view because they contain clauses such as, ‘The ISP may suspend the
user at any time for
any reason.’ This was considered at one stage to be a necessary precaution
to stop people
putting on pornography and that sort of thing. But because in Western
Australia that is
proscribed—the law tells us what is allowed and what is not—we are
at least in the situation
where there is no real borderline there. The WAIA code of conduct says
that if material on
an ISP site is illegal, then it is removed. That is simply all there
is to it. The question
relating to what we do in borderline cases never arises. It is either
certified as illegal or it is
not certified as illegal.
Senator HARRADINE—By ‘illegal’, what do you mean?
Mr Heitman—‘Illegal’ meaning a law enforcement officer says,
‘Take it off; it’s illegal.’
We are typically dealing here with matters which are unlawful to possess
under Western
Australian law. That constitutes the offensive material set forth under
the Censorship Act
1996. It includes child pornography, violence, scatology, bestiality,
and all the things that
you would consider to be similar to refused classification, but as
specifically defined under
the Western Australian act. So offensive material as defined in the
Censorship Act iss where
we draw the line.
Senator HARRADINE—Are you saying that the ISP is responsible
for the content
once—
Mr Heitman—Once it is on his system, yes. But we have the situation
where the
complaint is, ‘I accessed this material from a site in Finland.’ The
answer is, ‘I’m sorry;
you’ll have to take it up with the site in Finland. We don’t have the
capacity to do anything
about anything outside of our own system.’ Our code is very clear on
that. It is the parts of
the system which are under the ISP’s control where the ISP is responsible.
It is the parts of
the Internet outside the ISP’s control that the ISP cannot directly
interact with. For example,
there are technical reasons why some sites cannot even be physically
blocked by a refused
access list, and certainly not all of the sites that are contentious
or controversial could be
blocked.
Senator HARRADINE—Mr Heitman, let me get this very clear: are
you talking only
about material that is refused classification?
Mr Heitman—No. I am referring to material which is specifically
unlawful under the
Western Australian act. That does not necessarily coincide with the
refused classification
federal category.
Senator HARRADINE—How?
Mr Heitman—The refused classification federal category, for example,
does not admit to
a scientific or academic exception. For example, the material which
is permitted under
federal law is not exactly the same as that which is banned under the
state law. I am
referring specifically to the exception under the Censorship Act Western
Australia, which
permits findings of fact to be made as to whether material which would
otherwise, by
category, be refused classification, but nonetheless has an academic
or scientific reason to be
available. A good example would be trauma studies within the Department
of Anatomy
which would be potentially the most horrendous material out of context,
but in a medical
context and in a scientific context it is vital information for the
practitioners.
Senator HARRADINE—But, by and large, in the area of, let us say,
computer games,
the OFLC has refused classification to types of computer games which
are available on the
net.
Mr Heitman—I believe that to be the case, but the computer games
which are the most
concern to Western Australian ISPs are the ones which are quite legal.
They are just
consumers of Internet resources. It is the Quake type of games which
are legal in Australia
which are the ones that have the most prominence and give us the most
concern. I am
unaware from any of the ISPs, and certainly from any complaint at any
stage, as to the
availability of so-called ‘adult games’ on-line. They may be out there
along with everything
else, but they are not considered locally to be a problem.
CHAIR—There are no further questions. Thank you for coming over
and giving us the
benefit of your knowledge. Obviously, it is a very effective organisation
that you are
operating in Western Australia.
Mr Heitman—We are trying our best, Senator, the point being that
we did realise in
1995 that, if the industry did nothing at all, then we would be faced
with a legitimate
criticism that we are not cleaning up our own act. However, bear in
mind that we do also
ask that you take into account where we have drawn the line because,
for technical and
ethical reasons, we believe that a light-handed approach works better
than to try and ban all
material in all circumstances. I invite consideration of my submission.
Of course, we are on-line
at all times.
CHAIR—We look forward to receiving that e-mail note when you
get it to draft
position.
Mr Heitman—Certainly.
CHAIR—Thank you very much indeed.