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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4528 ..

(7) If not, why not.

Ms Gallagher

(1) All government primary schools currently use the Internet regularly as a research tool.

(2) All government high schools currently use the Internet in class as a research tool.

(3) None. The Internet service provider provides a range of internet safety services including website filtering and blocking of spam email.

Internet access is managed through the provision of a range of filtering categories. Many of these categories are switched on by default, such as "Pornography"and "Sex". Some categories can be changed at the school's discretion. This provides schools with some flexibility as to the type of content their students may access and authority to change these settings has been delegated to principals. No primary schools have changed the default filtering settings.

(4) None. No high schools have changed the default filtering settings.

(5) Yes.

(6) The Internet service provider provides a range of security measures aimed at providing a safe and productive online environment for students. These measures are transparent to the student and have no detrimental impact on access times.

Website filtering uses the N2H2 engine, renowned as being one of the best in the world. This service maintains a database of website URLs, known as a 'blacklist', which have been identified as containing inappropriate content. Thus not only are students protected from exposure to websites that contain inappropriate images but also from sites that contain other offensive content, such as racism related material. The software provider updates the database daily.

The type of categories filtered is extensive and all government schools currently filter the following categories: Adults Only, Alcohol, Hate/Discrimination, Gambling, Tasteless/Gross, Illegal, Profanity, Lingerie, Nudity, Pornography, Sex, Murder/Suicide, Violence, Weapons, Drugs and Search Terms.

Highly effective email filtering is also in place and this protects students from receiving offensive, and other inappropriate content from unknown sources (spam). Email being sent by students is also checked for profanity, with any such messages being blocked at the school level.

Schools have the ability to apply additional layers of filtering to individual students if they so wish.

(7) See response to question 6.

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