Internet Filtering

Related Resources • For Librarians • State Testing: Is It Necessary?

From Other Guides • The Internet Filtering Software Issue • Libraries Confront Filtering Law, Lawsuits

Elsewhere on the Web • eRate • Filtering and the eRate • Form 486 Filing Guidance • Overview of CIPA

Heads up, folks! Does your school accept eRate funding? If so, you better get moving down the road to compliance. The clock starts ticking on July 1 and you have until October 27, 2001 to prove that your school is indeed in compliance with Children’s Internet Protection Act or CIPA for short. According to the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), "The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was signed into law on December 21, 2000. Under CIPA, no school or library may receive discounts unless it certifies that it is enforcing a policy of Internet safety that includes the use of filtering or blocking technology."

Compliance is part of eRate reporting
Now if you are one of thousands of private schools which applied for the eRate funding under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, then you already are quite familiar with the stringent reporting requirements. By now Forms 471 & 486 are as well-known to you as your favorite aunt and uncle. What CIPA does is to put the onus on the recipients to prove that they have implemented strategies to comply with the Act.

Compliance involves several proactive steps
I recommend that you read eSchoolNews Online's article Filtering and the eRate: What you need to know right now. Liza Kessler outlines the issues and some practical solutions to the compliance problem. What really concerns me is that some schools may leave compliance to the last minute. Read Kessler's suggestions for compliance and you'll understand instantly why you cannot put this matter off. You must start now by drawing up an action plan.

Compliance has budget implications
Internet filtering software costs money. Add to that intial investment the time your IT professionals have to spend installing and configuring the software and you have another inroad into your already beleaguered technology budget. You can get filtering software for free, right? Wrong! This is 2001! Nothing's free on the Internet anymore!

A list of Internet filtering software

• Bess (N2H2 Inc.)
• Cyber Patrol (SurfControl)
• eSafe Gateway (Aladdin Knowledge Systems)
• I-Gear (Symantec Corp.)
• INET Library Plus (Inventive Communications)
• Internet Communications Server (Bascom Global Internet Services Inc.)
• iSentry (Omnicomp Systems Inc.)
• ScreenDoor (Palisade Systems)
• Websense Enterprise Software (Websense Inc.)
• Web Inspector (Elron Software)

--Rob Kennedy, Private Schools Guide