MDA suggests ways to raise awareness of ISPs’ parental control tools

SINGAPORE — The Media Development Authority (MDA) has proposed enhancements to parental control tools offered by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to raises awareness of this service among parents.

Since its introduction in 2012, the service has seen a “low” take-up rate of slightly over 100,000, said Ms Koh Li-Net, Chief Executive Officer of MDA. This is despite ISPs being required to inform and offer the controls to consumers at point of subscription or renewal.

Hence, among the MDA’s five recommendations is to get ISPs to obtain written or verbal instruction from consumers on whether or not they want these parental control tools.

Other recommendations include ISPs to offer some control functionalities for free, switch on parental controls at point of sale, filtering adult content by default, and have ISPs provide network-level parental controls.

The MDA is holding a three-week public consultation on its proposals. Interested parties may email their feedback to policy_consultations [at] mda.gov.sg by 5pm on May 9. The authority will also be conducting focus group discussions.