Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), an online civil liberties organisation, has described the Federal Government's online censorship legislation as a failure, and recommended that Internet censorship legislation "...be repealed and the costly and failed Internet regulatory apparatus be dismantled."

In a highly critical submission to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, released on Friday, the EFA said "Ministerial statements trumpeting the success of the scheme have been, by the Minister's own admission, based on erroneous statistics".

The censorship legislation, "The Co-Regulatory Scheme for Internet Content Regulation" allows members of the Australian public to complain to the Australian Broadcasting Authority about prohibited content.

If the material referred to in the complaint is hosted on an Australian server, the ABA has the authority to demand its removal.

The EFA document was written in response to a paper released by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts in September this year.

The EFA report also makes mention of a press release from Senator Richard Alston's office release in August, that praised the "...the effectiveness of the Federal Government's online content legislation in making the Internet safer for Australians and protecting Internet users-especially children-from unsuitable and offensive material".

The EFA have hit back by claiming "there is no evidence or indication in Government reports to support the Minister's (Sen Richard Alston) claim... that the Internet has been made safer as a result of the Government's Internet censorship regime".

The EFA were also very critical of the lack of information that was made available to them. "No information has been made available by the government about successful prosecutions, if any, resulting from the scheme."

The EFA also believes that much of the prohibited content reported to the ABA may still be online or accessible. Quoting from the report: "The ABA's refusal to provide the URLs or titles of taken-down Australian-hosted web pages, on the ground that such information would enable a person to access prohibited content on the Internet, indicates the ABA believes such content has not been taken down from the Internet."

Furthermore, the EFA says that "... the ABA spent 83 per cent of its Internet censorship efforts investigating content on overseas-hosted websites over which it has no control."

The censorship scheme costs AU$2.7 million per year.

A spokesperson from Senator Alstons office said that "...the government welcomes the EFA's submission in the context of the current review of the legislation."

"It will be considered along with everyone else's views." he said.

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