Blocking Age Restricted Content on Streaming Services

[WHOAMI3904]

Afternoon all,

I’m looking for some advice on how to block age-restricted content on platforms like BBC iPlayer and ITV X without blocking the sites entirely. The issue came up after noticing some students accessing content rated 15+ or 18+.

Students still need access to these sites for educational videos, documentaries, and other suitable content, so I’m trying to find a way to restrict only the age-rated material.

We’re currently using LGfL and School Protect for filtering.

Has anyone tackled this before or have any suggestions on how best to approach it?

Kind regards,

[drutt]

We block all streaming for students as otherwise they spend the day doing nothing but procrastinating on YouTube/iPlayer. We leave it to the class teacher to provide the video content they need.

[sigma]

28 minutes ago, drutt said:

We block all streaming for students as otherwise they spend the day doing nothing but procrastinating on YouTube/iPlayer. We leave it to the class teacher to provide the video content they need.

 

We do same for BBC and ITV, but allow BBC Bitsize revision video.

 

Live sports streams are also blocked for the same reason - just the video streams rather than whole sites though.

1 hour ago, WHOAMI3904 said:

Afternoon all,

I’m looking for some advice on how to block age-restricted content on platforms like BBC iPlayer and ITV X without blocking the sites entirely. The issue came up after noticing some students accessing content rated 15+ or 18+.

Students still need access to these sites for educational videos, documentaries, and other suitable content, so I’m trying to find a way to restrict only the age-rated material.

We’re currently using LGfL and School Protect for filtering.

Has anyone tackled this before or have any suggestions on how best to approach it?

Kind regards,

 

It is a good question particularly where there is high quality curriculum relevant content.

[tom_newton]

The smoothwall filter certainly has some capability here - been a while since I looked though, so maybe these sites have gotten harder to mangle. I will ask if it's still even possible. If it is, maybe Netsweeper can have a go at it.

[PaddyNewman]

I mean, reach out and I'll see what we can do in SchoolProtect, theres many ways to peel an orange. 

[tom_newton]

Yes - the Smoothwall content mod still works for those who want to use it, at least for BBC. ITV is under investigation

[WHOAMI3904]

Thanks all.

 

We decided to block the Entertainment category on SchoolProtect in the end. Which blocks the majority of these streaming services, anything not included we have blocked manually by adding the URL in on School Protect.