TV star slams apathy over web child porn

Television presenter and child protection activist Carol Vorderman has slammed the internet industry for not doing enough to protect children online.

At a meeting chaired by web campaign body the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) at the Houses of Parliament today, Vorderman said the internet industry was failing to stamp out online paedophilia.

"I don't believe there is a genuine will in the [internet] industry to protect our children online. I do not believe protecting our children online is a priority for the industry," she said.

Vorderman started campaigning against online paedophiles after making a TV documentary about the issue last year. The IWF meeting was attended by child protection groups, MPs, the internet industry and the media.

The IWF works with internet service providers, the public and police to remove child pornography and other illegal material from the internet. Recently, concern has grown over the use of Internet Relay Chat (IRC) by paedophiles to entice minors into meeting them, an issue raised by the successful prosecution of 33 year-old Patrick Green, who was convicted of having sex with a 13 year-old girl he met through an internet chat room.

Vorderman praised the IWF for running a "first class" hotline, but said it was under funded and must be given greater industry support. The IWF received just £258,500 this year from ISPs.

There are some 600,000 UK children under 12 that access the internet from home, according to research from Net Value.

As well as being scathing about the attitude of the judiciary, she also criticised the lack of funding for police investigating cases involving the internet, and the absence of relevant legislation to prosecute suspects.

In a thinly-veiled attack on web portals which host chat rooms where paedophiles are known to operate, Vorderman said: "All this makes me mad, but what makes me madder is when those who should be taking responsibility blame the parents."

She added that government plans to give every school child an email address should be introduced with care as it could be an open invitation for paedophiles to target minors, and said it could also expose children to offensive unsolicited commercial email, most of which carry adult content.

"The internet has the capacity to shatter children's innocence on one level. On another, it can shatter children's lives," she said.

Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) said that the internet industry had supported the IWF for five years and was actively involved in protecting children online.

"The total solution to solving the problem should not come down on the shoulders of the IWF, or the shoulders of filtering companies, or content ratings groups, or the police, or the government, or industry - but on the shoulders of everyone. ISPA is playing its role in bringing this serious issue to the attention of everyone," he said.

A spokeswoman at web portal Yahoo said: "The company absolutely opposes the internet being used for that kind of purpose," adding that following the Patrick Green case, it had upgraded the warnings on its chat room and was currently in the process of recruiting an IRC inspector in addition to its customer care team. The inspector would have the remit of acting on any information received and liasing with the IWF, she said.

However, child protection activists want more to be done. A representative of the National Children's Home called for transcripts of chat room conversations to be kept, and wanted would-be users of kids and teen chat rooms to provide their home address.