The Hamburg-based Pan Amp AG is offering schools in Bavaria a pilot project
for filtering out Internet content that could be harmful to young people.
This pilot project is being carried out in coordination with the Bavarian
State Ministry for Teaching and Culture in the framework of the federal
“Schools on the Net” initiative.
All 4300 educational institutions in
Bavaria with Internet access can take part in the most comprehensive pilot
operation for Internet filtering in Germany to date.
The speaker for the company, Michael M. Maren, told de.internet.com that
content which is sexist, which glamorizes violence, which is neo-fascist or
which instructs people in terrorist activity will be blocked. Experience
shows that there are numerous sites on the Internet whose blockage is
advocated by people regardless of their political point of view. This
includes f.e.suicide chats which provide students with contacts for suicide
pacts.
The company will use its FAS product (Filter Administration System) for the
statewide filtering. The distributed structure of this system allows for an
unlimited number of schools to be included. With FAS, negative filters are
used together with semantic keyword filtering.
“If there is a need to
temporarily block or give access to a Web site, our research team can do this
for that particular situation,” Maren said.