Internet Providers Could Be Obliged, at Parents’ Request, to Filter Online Content that Has a Negative Impact on Children

The draft Government Decision developed by the Ministry of Economy and Industry (MEI) provides for modification of the Law on Protection of Children from the Negative Impact of Information. According to it, Internet providers may, at customers’ request, provide the services of filtering the online content that negatively affects children.

The MEI suggests to introduce amendments to the Law on Protection of Children from the Negative Impact of Information, specifically to Article 5 (8), stipulating that “the persons providing access to public computer networks (Internet) shall ensure implementation and operation of tools for filtering online information that has a negative impact on children.” The authors of the document propose the following wording: “Providers of electronic communications networks and/or services, at the request of their users, shall be obliged to provide, on the basis of a contract, services for filtering the online content that has a negative impact on children.”

Asked by Media-azi.md about these modifications, the lawyer and media law expert Tatiana Puiu expressed her opinion that “any interference into rights should be covered by law.”

The authors argue that the current legislation in this field “is just a ‘void rule,’ which is not applicable, which is not in compliance with the functions of the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure inherited from the former Ministry of Information Technology and Communications, nor with the terminology provided by the current legislation.” In addition, the authors argue that the phrase “persons providing access to public computer networks (Internet)” does not clearly state the entities included in this category.

The Explanatory Note accompanying the document states that “the filtering of online content may not be imposed in a democratic state, but may be provided as an optional service, on the basis of a contract, to the users of electronic communications services, in this case, parents or guardians of children.”

At the same time, the current rule, according to the above Note, contradicts Recommendation (2016) 1 on protecting and promoting the right to freedom of expression and the right to private life with regard to network neutrality, adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, stating that “Internet traffic should be treated equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference irrespective of the sender, receiver, content, application, service or device. The network neutrality principle applies to all Internet access services irrespective of the infrastructure or the network used for the Internet connection and regardless of the underlying technology used to transmit signals.”

Some of the networks and electronic communication services providers (Moldcell, Moldtelecom) already offer such paid services to their customers on demand, the document mentions.These services protect children from inadequate web content and grant access only to safe pages.

According to a study conducted by La Strada International Center in 2014, 60% of the interviewed children faced viruses and/or spam, 53.5% mentioned the problem of hacking the passwords to their personal profiles in one of the social networks, 13.3% unintentionally viewed pornographic images in the Internet, and 12% did not know how to react in such situations.

The draft decision is at the stage of public consultations. The MEI will collect comments to this document until December 14 of this year.