Bill aimed at protecting children under 18 from harmful Web sites passed into law

The Mainichi Shimbun
June 11, 2008
Source: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20080611p2a00m0na022000c.html

A bill aimed at protecting children under the age of 18 from harmful Web sites such as dating sites was passed into law on Wednesday.

The House of Councillors approved the bill at a plenary session Wednesday morning. It was earlier endorsed by the House of Representatives.

The move comes as a growing number of youths have got caught up in crimes through online matchmaking sites.

The new law mandates mobile phone service providers to make available filtering software that blocks children aged below 18 from accessing harmful sites. It also obligates computer manufacturers to install filtering software on computers sold to youths. However, it has no clause providing punishment for offenders.

From the standpoint of protecting freedom of expression, the law does not provide for standards for determining whether information on Web sites is harmful, but instead requires a private third-party organization to work out such criteria.

It stops short of defining harmful information. However, as examples it cites information which directly and clearly induces crimes and suicides and that which extremely stimulates sexual desire or which is extremely cruel.

(Mainichi Japan) June 11, 2008