AIRLINES LIKELY TO BLOCK PORN SITES ON WI-FI FLIGHTS

AIRLINES LIKELY TO BLOCK PORN SITES ON WI-FI FLIGHTS

The Association of Flight Attendants has persuaded American Airlines and Delta Airlines to install filtering systems on their in-flight wi-fi systems that would block passengers from accessing pornographic movies. The move came after American said that the job of policing laptop users would be carried out by the flight attendants. Corey Caldwell of the Association of Flight Attendants told Wired.com, "We're glad the airlines have responded to our concerns and to those of passengers." Nevertheless, passengers have always been able to load pornographic films onto their laptops before boarding and watch them during a flight. That there are no reported incidents of anyone actually doing so appears significant to such groups as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Marc Rotenberg, who heads the EFF Privacy Information Center, told ITWorld.com that American's action opens the door to similar censoring of other content that passengers might find inappropriate. "It's so easy, once that precedent is set," he said, "to broaden ... the kind of information blocks that might be imposed."

14/10/2008