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TORONTO — The controversial British plan to block access to pornography websites unless Internet customers explicitly opt-in has been discussed in Canada but Internet service providers have thus far fought it off, according to the head of an industry group.

On Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he’s asking ISPs to restrict access to pornographic websites that are “corroding childhood” and hopes the filtering system will be in place by year’s end. Cameron also said he wants to make it illegal to possess violent pornography that portrays rape, and urged search engines to block queries for illegal content.

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The idea of setting up mandatory blocks around pornography isn’t new and has been floated in Canada off and on for years, said Tom Copeland, chairman of the Canadian Association of Internet Providers.

“The discussion has gone on forever and a day, mostly it starts around child pornography and what can be done to combat it and whether or not Internet service providers can play a role, or should play a role,” Copeland said.

“And then every once in a while somebody decides, ’Well, we need to take this further, it needs to include general pornography sites’ —which aren’t illegal — ’it needs to include hate sites.’ It needs to include any number of sites that somebody all of a sudden has a burr in their britches about.