Censorship in New Zealand: the policy challenges of new technology.

• Author: Wilson, David

Abstract

Recent advances in technology have created a range of challenges for those involved in the classification and censorship system in New Zealand. The rapid growth in Internet use, the introduction of DVDs and the availability of low-cost digital recording technology have raised policy and operational problems that did not exist when New Zealand's current censorship laws were enacted. This paper examines the effects of some of these changes and makes recommendations to address them.

INTRODUCTION

Censorship in New Zealand is governed by the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (the Classification Act) and associated regulations. The Act was the result of the 1987 Ministerial Committee of Inquiry into Pornography, which recommended, among other things, the consolidation of a variety of laws governing the classification of films, printed publications and videos into one statute. The Classification Act established a single Office of Film and Literature Classification (the Classification Office), which opened on 1 October 1994 and replaced the Indecent Publications Tribunal, Chief Censor of Films and the Video Recordings Authority.

The Act gives the Classification Office power to examine and classify a wide range of "publications", including films, videos, computer games, books, magazines, T-shirts and computer files. Television is excluded from the ambit of the Classification Act and is governed by the Broadcasting Act 1989. The Classification Act also sets out the criteria used to determine the classification of publications. The central issue that must be decided in classifying a publication is whether or not it is objectionable. Publications may be classified as objectionable, restricted or unrestricted. The term "objectionable" is defined in the Act, and centres on the question of whether the availability of a publication is likely to be injurious to the public good. Certain publications are automatically objectionable, in accordance with section 3(2) of the Act. A publication is deemed to be objectionable if it promotes or supports, or tends to promote or support:

* the exploitation of children or young persons for sexual purposes;

* the use of violence or coercion to compel any person to participate in, or submit to, sexual conduct;

* sexual conduct with the body of a dead person;

* the use of urine or excrement in association with degrading or dehumanising conduct or sexual conduct;

* bestiality; or

* acts of torture or the infliction of extreme violence or extreme cruelty.

Material of this sort is the focus of censorship enforcement activity. The New Zealand Customs Service deals with the importation of objectionable material, which is a prohibited import under the Customs and Excise Act 1996. The Department of Internal Affairs Censorship Compliance Unit investigates offences under the Classification Act, including the trade in and possession of objectionable publications. The Police may also exercise the enforcement powers in the Classification Act but generally refer matters involving objectionable material to Internal Affairs.

Those agencies involved in the classification and enforcement aspects of the Classification Act have faced increasing challenges in recent years as a result of developments in technology. The primary development has been the growth in the availability and use of the Internet. It is the challenges posed by the Internet and other new technology that are the focus of this article.

AVAILABILITY OF OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL

The Internet has made it easy for people to access a huge range of information from all over the world from their personal computers. While this has had undoubted benefits, it has also made objectionable material more readily available in New Zealand than ever before. Child pornography is freely available to anyone with a PC, modem and rudimentary computer skills. Previously, this type of material was not widely available because of New Zealand's geographic remoteness and the vigilance of Customs officers in intercepting it. However, such limiting factors are easily circumvented by Internet users (Department of Internal Affairs 1999).

The Department of Internal Affairs carries out on-line investigations of people trading in objectionable material, primarily child pornography. It has prosecuted people who have possessed as many as 190,000 images. In web chat rooms, many people can be found, at any one time, openly discussing and exchanging objectionable material. Peer-to-peer file sharing, which was primarily used to provide free access to music on the web, enables people to download objectionable material from computers anywhere around the world without ever meeting or knowing the persons they trade with. Peer-to-peer technology does not require an Internet service provider (ISP) or web host to store objectionable material on their servers because the images can be transferred directly from one person's computer to another. The increasing availability of digital cameras and web cameras has made it relatively easy for a person to produce pornographic images, legal and otherwise. Some of the child pornography circulating on the Internet consists of scanned images of magazine photographs produced legally in countries that had not outlawed child pornography in the 1970s. However, it is relatively easy to create new images, and these images may be circulated to thousands of anonymous viewers and collectors. Furthermore, digital images do not deteriorate as they are copied (unlike photographs and video tapes) and can be easily distributed around the world through the Internet. This suits collectors of objectionable material, who often focus on collecting complete sets of images (Taylor et al. 2001). In a recent New Zealand case a man had three networked computers searching the Internet for child pornography, which he then copied on to compact discs. He had amassed tens of thousands of images (New Zealand Herald 2002).

In 1998 New Zealand researchers wrote that:

There is a definite air of "moral panic" about media headlines that claim that pornography is rife on the Internet. Certainly it is there and in its full range from soft-core erotica to that defined by New Zealand legislation as "objectionable" ... but it isn't easy to access; an effort must be made to get through a complex maze of connections ... The objectionable material comprises only a small proportion of the total. (Watson and Shuker 1998) In the experience of the Department of Internal Affairs, it is relatively easy for people to find objectionable material through the use of an Internet search engine. Such a search leads to many links to mainly pay sites offering child pornography and other objectionable material. In order to exchange material with others, it is usually necessary to seek it out in Internet chat rooms. Research by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification also found that objectionable material is available on the Internet but that the chance of involuntary exposure to it is low (Australian Broadcasting Authority 1998). However, it is difficult to be certain about the amount of objectionable material available on the Internet. An American study of...