The EU could scrap the UK's online porn filters

What with a potential collapse of the single European currency, renewed terrorism threats and rife unemployment, you'd think the European Parliament would have bigger issues to deal with than what the UK is using its Chrome Incognito windows for.

Back in July 2013, David Cameron announced that the nation's internet service providers (ISPs) had agreed to offer "unavoidable choice" parental control filters in order to make the internet a safer place for children. The notion was that, with the filters in place, it would be harder for children to unwittingly stumble across sexually explicit images, and would help protect them from the darker corners of the internet.

Since then, the major ISPs have been rolling out the filters to all new customers, with plans for the "unavoidable choice" model (which has been used on mobile internet browsers for the better part ten years) to arrive in the near future. 

Unless, that is, the EU decides to vote in certain measures of its proposed Single Telecoms Market law. 

In a seedy nutshell, this law proposes unifying "net neutrality" across the EU, safeguarding an "open Internet". So, if you can view adult material without filters in France or German, you should receive the same freedoms in England without having to negotiate any opt-in filters.

A leaked draft of the law was met with concern by John Carr, the Government's advisor on internet security. "The risk is that a major plank of the UK's approach to online child protection will be destroyed at a stroke," he told the Sunday Times. "It all seems a bit sneaky or tacky for this to have come about as the result of a measure which, ostensibly, has nothing whatsoever to do with online child safety."

In short, don't expect the arguments on internet filters, freedom to browse and child safety to go away any time soon.

(Image: Shutterstock)

[Via: IBTimes]