Parliament has announced a new inquiry into online child safety, to be headed by Conservative MP and anti-pornography campaigner Claire Perry.

Anti-porn protesters lay siege to BT headquarters

Perry’s views on the topic are well known. In November 2010 she proposed that ISPs be made to block all pornographic content in order to protect children from inadvertently encountering unsuitable material online. The block would apply to all users except for those who explicitly opt-in to be allowed to visit adult websites.

Perry’s proposal was not adopted at the time, but she has continued to advocate making ISPs responsible for determining what children have access to online.

According to a press release on Claire Perry’s constituency website, the inquiry will seek:

1) To understand better the extent to which children access on-line pornography and the potential for harm that this may cause

2) To determine what British Internet Service Providers have done to date to protect children online and the extent and possible impact of their future plans in this area

3) To determine what additional tools parents require to protect children from inappropriate content

4) To establish the arguments for and against network level filtering of content that would require an 18 rating in other forms of media

5) To recommend to Government the possible form of regulation required if ISPs fail to meet Recommendation no.5 from the Bailey Review.

Commenting on the inquiry, Communications Minister Ed Vaizey said:

The Internet is a powerful tool for education and entertainment but there is material online that is not suitable for children. Parents need to have the right tools to be able to protect their children from inappropriate content. I look forward to receiving the Inquiry’s report and seeing their conclusions.

However, as commentators have been quick to point out, there is no shortage of tools to help parents protect their children. Parental control software has been widely available for a number of years, and many ISPs offer “family friendly” Internet access. But such arguments are unlikely to convince Perry and her supporters, who continue to argue that ISPs should step in to compensate when parents fail to make use of the numerous options at their disposal.

Public evidence sessions will take place in Committee Room 7, House of Commons between 14:00 and 16:00 on September 8th and October 18th.