Posted on 5-7-2004

Banks Need To De-link From Internet Porn
by Owen Bowcott, July 3, 2004, The Guardian

The banking industry has expanded its blacklist of internet businesses in
an attempt to ban websites which trade in images of sexual violence,
racism or terrorism from using its credit cards.

The new guidelines were issued this week by the Association for Payment
Clearing Services (Apacs), which is also trying to remove credit cards
from customers who use them to purchase pictures from illegal child
pornography sites.

The moves reflect fears that the global reach of the internet, combined
with the purchasing power of internationally branded credit cards, is
fuelling the traffic in "extreme" images, as well as outlawed obscenities.

In the US, the Christian right has been pressing financial institutions to
go even further and cut their commercial links with adult pornographic
sites.

The extended Apacs guidelines, which are advisory rather than binding,
were introduced after a Westminster Hall debate in parliament earlier this
summer which voiced concerns about the availability of violent sexual
images on the internet.

Among those who called for a ban on sites promoting violent pornography
was Liz Longhurst, 72, the mother of murdered Brighton teacher Jane
Longhurst. She has demanded the removal of sites that feature images of
necrophilia and dead women - such as those viewed by her daughter's
killer, the musician Graham Coutts, hours before he strangled Jane.

In the debate, David Lepper, the Labour MP for Brighton, Pavilion,
suggested that another means of tackling the problem would be to encourage
credit card companies to put "a financial squeeze on the providers of
extreme images".

Tim Loughton, Conservative MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, also warned
about reports that "people who have been convicted of buying child
pornography with their credit cards are being rearrested for committing
the same offence with the same credit card."

The Home Office's response has been that there is a lack of international
agreement on what constitute obscene, and therefore illegal, images. Most
of the sites carrying such images are registered abroad and not subject to
UK law.

The new Apacs guidelines state: "Banks provide facilities to internet
merchants that enable them to accept card payments for content and
merchandise. [We] deplore the abuse of these facilities on ethical, legal
and sound business grounds.

"Banks will not knowingly do business with internet sites that sell
content/merchandise inciting, advocating or perpetuating activities such
as child pornography, racism, terrorism and violence against persons,
including scenes of sexual violence."

The ban on dealing with sites selling illegal child pornography is already
in force.

The guidelines do not offer a definition of what constitutes "violence
against persons".

"We are not setting ourselves up as moral arbiters," said Sandra Quinn, a
spokeswoman for APACS, the umbrella body which represents the major banks
and buildings societies. "But we have to be sure we are doing all we can
about preventing the spread of such extreme images.

"We had no objections from our members on the grounds of [whether this
was] censorship. But we don't want to be any more prescriptive. It's a
grey area."

Different banks already have different policies towards licensing their
credit card brands. American Express, for example, does not allow adult
pornography sites to use its cards for payments.

Apacs has written to the Department of Constitutional Affairs requesting
changes to the Data Protection Act which prevents the police from passing
on to banks the identity of customers investigated for purchasing
pornographic images of children.