Glasgow city council has been forced to pull the plug on all public internet access at its libraries after children were discovered gathered around PCs looking at pornographic websites.
The council was alerted by a concerned parent after her young child came home and said she had "seen a naked lady" at the library. Internet access has been shut down until the council can put filtering software in place.
Unlimited access has been on offer since late last year when the city's libraries disabled filtering software that was considered too restrictive. The software had blocked access to generally inoffensive sites, such as national newspapers and magazines, if they contained keywords such as "sex".
Glasgow city council has apologised and accepted full responsibility for the problem.
"We should have paid more attention to how our libraries' internet access was running. There was no filter and there should have been," a spokesman said.
New filtering software had been due for installation at the end of this month to replace the overly restrictive system. But while unlimited access was on offer, the children of Glasgow were quick to take advantage of the situation.
The problem for Glasgow's libraries is that most filtering software is a blunt instrument at best, and keeping inappropriate sites out of children's reach can also mean keeping adults away from information they want or need.
Glasgow city council is well aware of the civil liberties issues. "The words filtered by the old software could stop an adult from reading an article about sex therapy in a national newspaper, for example," said the spokesman. "It was pointless having a system in a library that was so strict."
Paola Bassanese, an analyst with internet consultancy Ovum, said most of the tools available now filter by keyword or specific internet address. To get around the restriction, sites can use code words that will sound inoffensive to a filtering system or change their URL.
"This kind of software is pretty limiting as it will filter out an innocuous site," she said. "There is no foolproof solution."
Ms Bassanese suggests that libraries could put a computer chip on library swipe cards that would tell a computer what sort of internet access you should have: filtered for the under-18s and unlimited for adults. But she admits a solution that complicated may be too expensive for a library.
Meanwhile, Glasgow city council hopes to have internet access up and running again - with new filtering software - by the end of this week. And the kids will be left to think of creative new search words to outwit the filters.
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