Houses of Parliament. Photograh by Peter Broster
One might imagine that by when the government pushed on with plans to censor the internet of the general public, blocking access to adult material, gambling, and more, that they would have got their own house in order. The recent news that 300,000 attempts were made from with Parliament to access pornography last year shows that that is not the case.
The figure represents more than 800 attempts per day, and was made public after a freedom of information request was put to Palace of Westminster IT chiefs. They were made by devices linked to the secure Parliamentary Network which is used by MPs, peers, their staff, and other employees.
Parliament may argue that the figures are not accurate and include extra hits from popups, advertisements, and video embeds, and the figures show odd peaks and troughs in the monthly stats, but this all misses the point that rather than censoring the internet of the nation, we need to censor the internet of parliament.
Many companies have limits on the internet accessed through their networks to avoid people watching inappropriate material or wasting time of Facebook at the workplace. Why are MPs permitted to waste time paid for by the public purse on such websites. It certainly was not all research to prepare for the Great Firewall of Britain.