Schools Broadband Netsweeper filtering safeguarding alert.

[filteringtech]

Schools Broadband supply a Keyword Filtering list that they confirmed to us:

The SBB_Keywords shared list is a list we apply as default using some of the most prolific words that we do not want to be allowed in a search. It is a list applied in netsweeper, any words in that list could not be searched but adding them as allowed in the local list should overrule that.

 

The list contains words such as "adult", "teen", "lesbian", "gay", "bomb","breast" and others that really have no place being totally blocked in a modern system with contextual filtering such that History, PSHE, food tech and Biology can be delivered safely online, but that porn, and extreme content are not.

 

The problem, as I know others are also aware of, is that the way that Schools Broadband have chosen to configure this, is if we allow the word "adult" in the manner suggested, any search including the word adult will bypass filtering. This also applies to urls, with adult delimited if it is added as a "Wholeword" or anywhere in the url if added as a "Keyword". All further filtering is bypassed, such that searches for "adult fetish", "adult porn", "adult beheading" go sailing straight through.

 

For us, initially Schools Broadband denied that it worked like this until we presented irrefutable evidence a couple of months ago.

 

The reason I am posting this is that I was offered the same solution yet again yesterday by an apparently senior person who "has an excellent understanding of the platform".

 

Most schools, and indeed ourselves until last December take the advice of our ISP unquestioningly and expect them to provide the expertise on the tools they provide, and it is frankly astonishing that Schools Broadband are still providing advice to schools to unblock their Keywords in such a dangerous manner that totally disregards user safety and our own filtering obligations.

 

If you are a customer of theirs, please check that you have not added any words as an "allow" to any Local or Shared lists in Netsweeper.

Edited September 22, 2023 by filteringtech

[Jawloms]

So basically, they block the word "adult" so that you can't search for it and their suggestion if you don't want that happening is to add the word to your own list, but if you add any words to your own lists then ANY search or URL that contains the word "adult" is then allowed?

 

Going on past experiences, I'm guessing this post with generate a DM from SchoolsBroadband with promises to sort stuff, and then you won't hear from them for weeks........

[filteringtech]

And another thing. SBB hide some of the Shared Lists they apply to your Policy Groups. We tracked these down because some category blocks were failing. These involve the whitelistng of YouTube and a number of Ad serving domains amongst others.