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CHENNAI: In an attempt to protect children from sexual abuse online, the Centre has asked internet service providers to block sites which have explicit content as listed by a UK-based watchdog group, on or before July 31.

The Union ministry of electronics and information technology told internet service providers (ISP), including those who have international gateway licenses, on Wednesday to adopt and implement the 'blocking list' supplied by Internet Watch Foundation (IWF). At present, there are around 3,500 URLs on the list, which is updated twice a day.

The order is based on recommendations of an interministerial committee set up following a 2013 Supreme Court directive. The committee noted that most online child sexual abuse materials are hosted by sites created outside India. The dynamic nature of these websites and URLs make them hard to track and block. At present, India does not have a centralised mechanism to track online child sexual abuse imageries or pornography.

Sites and URLs go into IWF's blocking list based on three categories: content showing penetrative sexual assault of a child, non-penetrative sexual assault and pictures of children in sexual poses and other offensive imagery.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in India can access this service by paying a fee which can vary between 1,000 pounds and 78,000 pounds per year, depending on the size of the company.

Internet Service Providers Association of India president Rajesh Chharia, who was part of a group consulted by the government, said the Centre had promised to pay the fee on their behalf, routed through the association.

“This is an expensive venture.The question on why a single organisation is being given monopoly kept cropping up during our discussions, but officials were mum,“ he said. There are around 200 inter net service providers in India. He said the government had failed to address some technical issues too. “Some of these sites are encrypted which we can't block,“ he said.

When TOI contacted a member who was part of the inter-ministerial committee, he admitted the initiative had loopholes. “This is a temporary arrangement till we have a centralised mechanism in place,“ he said, demanding anonymity .

In an email interview with TOI, IWF chief executive Susie Hargreaves said the money would go into running the hotline set up by the foundation. In India, the hotline titled 'Aarambh Initiative' was started in September.

Over six months, the team received 426 reports from users saying they had come across sexually explicit content featuring children. Of these, 46 were confirmed to have child sexual abuse images, 33 of them showing penetrative sexual assault. Thirteen of them were of children below 2 years. The highest number of sites were traced to the US, followed by Russia and France.

In 2015, the government had banned around 850 sites citing the Supreme Court's directions to address the menace of pornography, especially child pornography.

