War vs Child Porn needs Systemic Approach instead of sanctions and more regulations

Recently, the government announced that it will impose sanctions against Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telcos that have failed to adhere to their duties stipulated in the Anti-Child Pornographic Act.

Child Pornography is a serious and a complex problem that needs a more inclusive and dynamic approach rather than more regulations and sanctions on the telcos and ISP companies who are actually our first defense against cyber-attacks.

The government should empower the telcos and ISPs as allies in fighting the societal menace of Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children (OSEAC) instead of imposing more sanctions and even more regulations.

The best approach would be to work together in a systemic, whole-of-society approach that will harness all the technology and resources of government, law enforcement agencies, the academe, global and local NGOs, and technology experts to develop the responsive policies, and digital tools, in developing and implementing safety programs. Several of these initiatives are already being implemented.

Globe Telecom has reported ongoing investments reaching US$2.7 million in their content filtering system which blocked a total of 2,521 domains with child porn related content as part of its ‘PlayItRight’ advocacy program targeting online child pornography and illegal content. Globe is also a partner of the “Kabataang Digital” project of the National Privacy Commission to provide age-appropriate support and help children understand the nature of privacy and the implications of the digital environment on their privacy rights.

Converge ICT Solutions Inc. for its part installed a firewall system and Secure Domain Name Solution to block websites with child pornography material and malicious content. Their Child Online Safeguarding Policy is being implemented with the Department of Information and Communications Technology, The National Telecommunications Commission and the Department of social Welfare and Development.

Facebook, has been working with government and law enforcement agencies, global and local NGOs, academics, and experts to develop the best policies, build tools, and create safety resources and programs. They are engaging 500 safety organizations and offer digital literacy programs to empower communities. Child protection policies are constantly refined to respond to changing online behavior under a no-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation content. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, computer vision, and machine learning are detecting bad content. Content violating community standards are put down as soon as reported. A global team is operating 24 by 7 to implement all these safety programs.

The telcos have raised policy misalignments on the Anti-Child Pornographic Act and the Data Privacy Act. This must immediately be addressed to empower the ISPs to detect and act quickly on harmful content while ensuring that individual privacy is not violated.

Harmonizing government laws to give telcos, ISPs and other online platforms enough authority to hunt down and purge harmful websites while protecting the data privacy of individual consumers will be more constructive.

CitizenWatch Philippines calls on all sectors to unite in combatting the OSEAC. The whole of society must work together as a united force to keep cyber space a safe and enabling platform as we strive to overcome this pandemic crisis.

Atty. Tim Abejo

Co-Convenor, CitizenWatch Philippines