Filtering Tools do not live up to their promise

The most filtering tools for harmful online content on the market have a very low effectiveness – given five pages of harmful content, most tools block less than four. This is the key result of a study called SIP Bench II – „Benchmarking of parental control tools for the online protection of children“. Among the 31 tested programs – 26 for PC, 2 for mobile phones and 3 for game consoles – there was no tool that achieved the overall top score of 4 points. The test results have been made available in an online database.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-52IB9Ilfg

„I would only use the tools as additional means, but not completely rely on them“, says Jérôme Valette, a scientist who works for the SIP-Bench study. His team has examined filtering tools since 2009 and has now published the first results. Besides the effectiveness of the tools, the researchers checked their functionality, their usability and their security – that is, if a youth can easily undo or get around the online barriers erected by the tools.

There are several factors that boost or reduce the impact of the tools. For instance, the language used by the system – the English spoken tools are more effective than those that are run on Polish, German, French, Italian or Spanish machines. Also the type of content and its form has an effect: Porn and adult content are filtered more effectively than racist content or pages related to self damage, anorexism or mutilation. „Traditional“ websites are more likely to be found and blocked accordingly than web 2.0 content such as blogs or Facebook posts.

For the other categories, the programs achieved better marks than for their effectiveness. As to their functionality, the report states, all the tools allowed for blocking content according to categories and setting up profiles for users with different needs. As to their usability, most tools seemed to be either to complicated to configure or very reduced, which partly has an impact on the success of the filtering. The report points out that the configuration „is key to the product“.

„Tools are ok, raising awareness is better“, reports Jérôme Valette. „Still, parents need to negotiate with their children what is harmful content and how they treat it“. For those who think a tool might be useful, more results are yet to come: SIP-Bench 2 will be finalised in 2012 and further findings will be published in six months-intervals. The study was commissioned by the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media, in the framework of the Safer Internet Programme, to Cybion Srl and Stiftung Digitale Chancen, under the coordination of INNOVA Europe S.à.r.l.

The database of the project can be found HERE

More information on SIP-Bench is available HERE

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