Pornography: Soon, parental censorship to ensure kids safety online

New Delhi: With pornography being easily accessible nowadays, telecom companies are mulling over the possibility to offer parents a censorship tool in order to keep check on their children's online behaviour.

As per the Economic Times report, telecom companies including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Telenor and Reliance Jio Infocomm are considering a plan that will give consumers options either to choose or bar access to porn sites.

The move comes after the government imposed a ban on about 900 porn sites last August, although it had to be scrapped after a furore on social media over censorship.

Telecos and Internet service providers (ISPs) are in “active“ talks with New Zealand-based Bypass Network Services (BNSL) to deploy its Buddy Guard parental control solution, according to Matthew Jackson, the company's cofounder.

It is said that Buddy Guard is primarily aimed at parents who may want to regulate the online behaviour of their children.

Under the new plan, consumers can choose to opt for the control on a daily, weekly or monthly basis as with any other value-added service (VAS).

It said this would be the first at network level to filter browsing behaviour although third-party apps are already available.

According to Jackson, the interest of telecom companies and ISPs in parental control had soared after last year's porn ban.

A recent survey by Pornhub showed Indians as one of the most prolific consumers of internet pornography in the world. It showed that the country was at the third spot that brought maximum traffic to the site in 2015. Pornhub is one of the world's largest porn websites.

India, which has second-highest number of internet users in the world, is expected to go up to 50 crore, from the present over 40 crore, in next 5-8 months.