Internet Blocking

Dear Mr Jackson

Freedom of Information Act 2000 - Request for Information

Thank you for your recent enquiry for information held by the Council under
the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We acknowledge
receipt of your request and we will be touch with you again in due course.

In some circumstances a fee may be payable and if that is the case, we will
let you know. A fees notice will be issued to you and you will be required
to pay before we will proceed to deal with your request.

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact a member of our team on 0121 303 4876.

Yours sincerely

Corporate Information Governance Team

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Dear Mr Jackson

Further to your email requesting information regarding internet blocking,
please see below our response.

Software provider categories blocked are:

Hacking
Illegal/Questionable
Phishing
Proxy Avoidance
Spyware Effects/Privacy Concerns
Spyware/Malware Sources
Violence/Hate/Racism

Everything else is open, pending the outcome of discussions with individual
directorates.

The City Council does not have a policy of blocking access to websites on
the grounds that they contain material relating to atheism, it never has
had such a policy and it does not intend to introduce such a policy. This
is also the case with websites that provide material on agnosticism,
secularism, Wicca and witchcraft.

Regarding internet sites that have been blocked over the last 24 months,
this information has not been logged on a central database therefore, the
only way we can retrieve this is by going through the internet monitoring
logs. Birmingham City Council has estimated that it will cost more than the
appropriate limit to consider your request.

The appropriate limit specified in the regulations is £450.00. This
represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in
determining whether the department holds the information, and locating,
retrieving and extracting the information. Consequently, the Council is not
obliged by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to respond to your request
see section 12(1).

If you require any further information or are not happy with our response
please do not hesitate to contact a member of our team on 0121 303 4876.

Regards

Corporate Information Governance Team

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Dear Mr Jackson

We acknowledge receipt of your further enquiry and will contact you again
in due course.

regards

Corporate Information Governance Team

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Dear Mr Jackson

Further to your email below, I can confirm that the software categories
sent to you were from Bluecoat, this is the software which controls and
monitors access to the internet. The City Council recently purchased it to
replace the BorderManager software which, is still being phased out.

The Council does have the ability to block sites by URL and this was the
way in which sites were blocked under BorderManager, however it is the
intention to use the Bluecoat categories as the mechanism of blocking in
the future.

The company that provides the software, categorises websites into the
categories that are on the list provided (definitions/numbers and category
names are theirs). Please see the list of more detailed categories below,
please note this is a draft of a /suggested/ set of criteria , whose
version number, being less than 1.0, indicates that it is not finalised.

(See attached file: Categories - suggested actions v0.3 with title.pdf)

In relation to your query regarding temporary blocking, as we previously
stated, this information is not captured on a central database, we can
generate a list of sites that were blocked. However, it is not apparent if
this was a temporary measure, to get this information we would need to look
through the internet logs. Birmingham City Council has 8 to 12 thousand
internet users, an example of one persons 2 week internet usage was 39,000
logs this is because even when looking at one site, it can generate a log,
when for example pop ups appear.

It is not practical nor appropriate to examine sites denied within the log
files of activity as they contain personal data. However, even if we were
to redact personal data the log files would have to be restored from a
backup file and concatenated to put us in a position to conduct the overall
analysis. To carry out this data-gathering exercise it would involve a
full time officer 2-3 weeks to retrieve and locate the information and
would exceed the £450 threshold.

Regards

Corporate information Governance Team

Richard Jackson <[FOI #1585 email]> on 04/08/2008
18:47:22

To: FOI requests at Birmingham City Council
<[Birmingham City Council request email]>
cc:

Subject: Freedom of Information request - Internet Blocking

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your speedy response to my enquiry.

Your aside about atheism et al was rather puzzling, so I searched
online for more about this, and discovered that there have been
recent press stories on this topic. Although that is mildly
interesting, I was completely unaware of such stories prior to your
response, and my request is not connected with those whatsoever.

As to the remainder of your response, I am unsure what you mean by
"Software provider categories blocked". Does this mean that you do
not block any sites whatsoever by URL, but only block categories of
site, and this is done using a built-in filter of third-party
software? If so, can you please detail what that software is, and
provide any information that you have as to which actual sites are
blocked by each category you have selected, or whatever other such
information you hold that would provide more information on this.

In relation to temporary blockages, I note your comments regarding
the "appropriate limit", but I would remind you that under the Act
you have a responsibility to provide assistance, which in this case
might involve suggesting what time period _could_ be examined
within the limit, rather than simply ruling out that entire portion
of my request. Can you please also provide more information as to
what form these logs take, and why it would take so long to search
them?

Yours sincerely,

Richard

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Dear Mr Jackson

Please see attached response to your request for an internal appeal.

(See attached file: Appeal Response.doc)

regards

Corporate Information Governance Team

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