Reportage
Blockedwebsitesand
unblocking software
Family Control is a big player!
There’s no doubt that the measures taken by the Telecommunications Regulatory
Authority (TRA) in collaboration with internet service providers to block websites
that provide content contrary to the moral, ethical, cultural, and religious values
of the UAE won’t succeed without parental control on the youngsters, especially
that there are many software programmes that can unblock such sites.
H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim,
TRA’s Director General, clarified that
80% of the blocked sites contain
content that contradicts moral and
ethical values in the UAE including
nudity
and dating websites. Content
offensive to religions constitutes 1%
of banned sites, 4% are blocked be-
cause they don’t comply with local
laws. The remaining 7% are sites
which form a direct or indirect threat
to users such as phishing sites,
hacking tools and spyware.
Al Ghanim clarified that according to
recent statistics by TRA, the num-
ber of internet subscribers in the
UAE has exceeded 1.3 million. He
called upon families to monitor their
children while they use the Internet.
Families can take simple measures
such as placing computers in the liv-
ing rooms in order to easily monitor
their children’s activities.
About using programmes to bypass
blocked sites, Al Ghanim said that
TRA is working with Etisalat and DU
to block sites that provide such soft-
ware, highlighting that out of keen-
ness to preserve UAE traditions and
culture, TRA teams spare no efforts
to combat such programmes.
Mr. Asaad Hussein, a Marketing Ex-
ecutive at Infinity, sees that with so
many programmes that can unblock
website, it’s inevitable for families
to cooperate with the regulatory au-
thorities. He noted that some pro-
grammes change users’ IP address-
es to let them access any blocked
website. He said that he discovered
the software on his teenage son’s
computer. This prompted him to
seek an expert’s opinion on the mat-
ter. He called for concerting efforts to
protect teenagers and children from
such programmes especially that it is
difficult for inexperienced people to
detect them.
Mr. Raiyan Al Hashimi, Deputy Chief
of Regulatory Operations at Etisalat,
said that the company started pro-
