Legal and Professional Issues Concerned with Pornography in a Public Information Centre.

1. Introduction

1.1 Scenario

You are the manager of an information centre in which there are Internet terminals for public use. Staff report that they have noticed a user accessing pornographic sites, and they suspect that he may be trying deliberately to offend them and other users. They ask you not only to deal with this case, but to find ways of stopping similar things in future.

1.2 Background

Computer misuse can be complicated to identify but it is clear that public debate focuses on the theme of pornography .

Internet pornography is a growing public concern. In 2001, 2% of all websites (around 74,000 sites) contained adult pornographic material, with an estimated 20,000 new pages added per day .

This report highlights some of the issues raised by the above scenario and suggests measures that could be taken to gain fuller understanding and propose a possible solution.

2. Underlying issues

2.1 Ethical implications

In the arena of Strategic Management, an ethical issue is one which can either benefit or bring harm to others . It is the responsibility of individuals to determine whether their actions will affect those around them. Pornography is one of many issues which are generally not acceptable in our information centre, let alone society as a whole.

2.1.1 Freedom of access

The Internet is a public resource; anyone with the correct software and tools can access it and make use of it.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions states that “intellectual freedom is the right of every individual both to hold and express opinions and to seek and receive information” . As an information centre, we are expected to provide access to a range of information resources but it has to be understood that we are willing to and capable of restricting these services if we feel they are being abused.

2.1.2 User privacy

There is a palpable need to establish a balance between the information centre’s desire for control to protect individuals and a user’s right to privacy.

As stated under Section 46 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 , it is legal for me as a manager to view images in order to decide whether they are classified as indecent. As a further protection for the centre, I will be informing an authority such as the police or the Internet Watch Foundation.

Situations can become complicated when considering invading a person’s privacy. We at the centre need to review our existing policy on rights to privacy and also check with a professional body concerning our legal rights to invade user privacy.

2.1.3 Concerns for other users

The number and types of people using services like ours has risen. There are typical business users or tourists, who check e-mail or business appointments ; and there are also younger customers who use services like online messaging.

There is a risk that some of our younger customers could be affected by others accessing pornography. This leads to concerns for parents and in turn for our centre. We could experience a decrease in the number of users which may result in loss of service and revenue.

2.2 Legal implications

Accessing pornographic images is a complicated area of the law. There are differing arguments as the law is not strictly clear. The Crown Prosecution Service rarely allows prosecutions where only a handful of images are found; where there are more, the scenario will be different. It has been said that one cannot commit this type of crime accidentally; one can stumble over indecent images but cannot accidentally download, save or make copies .

Possession of adult pornography carries a different punishment to that for possession of child pornography, which can result in up to three years imprisonment. The US has obscenity laws in place which prohibit the posting of “lewd” material on the Internet . This further demonstrates the seriousness of our current situation. It will be necessary for us to investigate the legalities in further depth. One suggestion is to involve an external legal expert to ensure we gain accurate and current information.

One study to display the law at work is the case of John Robin Sharpe in Canada, 1995. He was acquitted in 1999 of two counts of child pornography possession, as the court ruled that a person cannot be prosecuted for having images for personal use. He was retried in 2002 and received four months house arrest. The law argues that protection of children is more important than protections afforded by a Charter of Rights and Freedom .

An individual could be prosecuted and furthermore our centre and our staff could also be charged if we are found to be allowing this type of behaviour. In 2004 for example, 12,000 Internet cafes were shut down in China, many because they allowed access to pornography .

3. Possible solutions

Several approaches are outlined below:

пЂÑ" Identify pornographic material вЂ" child pornography is illegal but possessing adult pornography for personal use is not illegal, but need to consider people around user; assess whether to involve authorities.

пЂÑ" Survey existing users and staff вЂ" to identify problems or issues that may become apparent e.g. whether they have noticed accessing of pornographic sites or whether staff are aware of the correct procedure if they discover pornographic content.

пЂÑ" Access user history вЂ" to monitor previous hits on websites; check for repeat offenders (could have been accessed by mistake).

пЂÑ" Research other examples вЂ" contact other centres to find out if there have been similar cases and how they were dealt with.

пЂÑ" Investigate the use of advanced filtering вЂ" many centres like ours will already have some sort of filtering in place but it may prove beneficial to examine possible improvements to current systems.

4. Recommendation

4.1 Present Case

From the reading and research that has been done, it is apparent that there is no single solution to this dilemma. After carefully considering

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