Telecom New Zealand has signed up to the government’s new voluntary web filtering scheme.
The filter, developed by Sweden's Netclean Technologies, checks ISP customers' connection requests against a list of filtered IP addresses. ISPs will not be given a list of sites on the blacklist.
The operator said it would implement the filter, an initiative of New Zealand's Department of Internal Affairs, in the coming weeks.
If a user requests an IP that is on the list, it will be redirected to the department of internal affairs' servers and checked against a list of known offending URLs, and blocked if a match is found.
The department claims that this method causes no degradation of internet performance.
The filter was first made available to ISPs in March. The system is voluntary for ISPs to implement, and focuses exclusively on blocking child sexual abuse material.
This puts it in contrast with the controversial system proposed in Australia, which would be mandatory and block material refused classification by the nation's classification board.
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