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Speaker 1: Now, Spark has become the first New Zealand telco to

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Speaker 1: block websites that are hosting AI generated child sex abuse

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Speaker 1: material stuff that's non photographic. Now what that means is

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Speaker 1: it doesn't look realistic. It's cartoon style images or artistic

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Speaker 1: impressions of child abuse material. Leela Ashford is Spark Sustainability

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Speaker 1: director and with me Hi Leela.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Heather, how are you going? Good?

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Speaker 1: Thank you? Now the Internet Watch Foundation because they've seen

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Speaker 1: about a four hundred percent increase of this kind of

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Speaker 1: stuff AI generated stuff. Are you seeing that?

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Speaker 2: So we basically see it through the IWF, So we

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Speaker 2: take a list that they compile rather than going and

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Speaker 2: I guess finding it ourselves because it is a legal content.

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Speaker 2: But yes, they've told us that it's been rising by

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Speaker 2: about four hundred percent and that includes both you know,

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Speaker 2: photorealistic as well as non photographic images and videos, which

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Speaker 2: is really concerning.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so are they the ones who tell you

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Speaker 1: what websites to block?

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Speaker 2: That's right, because you know, Spark can't have its people

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Speaker 2: obviously going and trawling for that kind of material be

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Speaker 2: illegal for us to access it. So the way that

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Speaker 2: it works is IWF has its own organization in place.

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Speaker 2: It has appropriate people who are trained to identify this content.

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Speaker 2: They create a list that automatically, it's automated to come

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Speaker 2: into our network, and then we block it, and that

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Speaker 2: list gets updated around twice a day, so it's very current.

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Speaker 1: How many websites you've blocked.

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Speaker 2: We don't have a specific tracking of it at this

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Speaker 2: stage because we've just implemented broad it in. But THEWF

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Speaker 2: list itself can be anywhere from thousands to tens of thousands,

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Speaker 2: but because it's updated twice a day, that number does

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Speaker 2: change over time.

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Speaker 1: What about a site like Twitter? Would you go as

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Speaker 1: far as to block that?

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Speaker 2: No, So this is the challenge with network blocking. It's

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Speaker 2: a bit of a blunt instrument. So the only thing

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Speaker 2: that Spark can do is block at a total network level,

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Speaker 2: So that means we block a whole domain or a

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Speaker 2: whole week site. So when IWF says to us, this

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Speaker 2: whole website is full of this awful material, then we

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Speaker 2: block it. But if it was something hosted within a

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Speaker 2: Facebook page or a post, for example, the only tool

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Speaker 2: we have available is to block Facebook for everyone on

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Speaker 2: the Spark network, which obviously we can't do. So you

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Speaker 2: do need a number of different interventions to tackle this issue.

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Speaker 1: But that is though, Leela, I guess, I mean that

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Speaker 1: shows just the extent of what we can do, which

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Speaker 1: is that we can't get rid of it all right,

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Speaker 1: because even if we've blocked every single bad website out there,

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Speaker 1: there will still be people who use Twitter to share

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Speaker 1: this kind of thing.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I think if there are people who want

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Speaker 2: to access this material, they will, They will get around

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Speaker 2: our network blocking with certain tools. But what we're trying

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Speaker 2: to do, I guess, is to protect particularly kids, but

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Speaker 2: any of our customers from inadvertently stumbling across this because

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Speaker 2: this content isn't just on the dark Web, it's across

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Speaker 2: the Internet.

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Speaker 1: Hey are you worried? Unrelated, but are you worried about

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Speaker 1: the three G shutdown?

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Speaker 2: We're doing a lot of work on the three G

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Speaker 2: shutdown obviously, this is you know, the old version, the

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Speaker 2: old G, and we're now into four G and we've

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Speaker 2: got five G coming.

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Speaker 1: We're going to shut down.

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Speaker 2: Well, we've been communicating to our customers who are using

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Speaker 2: devices that are impacted by three G. So you'll start

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Speaker 2: to notice you're either getting direct messages or when you

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Speaker 2: start to make a call on your phone, it'll start

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Speaker 2: to say, hey, you're dialing from a device that is impacted.

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Speaker 2: There are devices like what you're talking about that are

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Speaker 2: not necessarily connected to us, like IoT sensors or medical alarms,

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Speaker 2: and generally those businesses and managing the communications. But we're

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Speaker 2: working very closely with them to ensure that we're giving

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Speaker 2: everyone a really long heads up before it shuts down.

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Speaker 1: Yest year. Yeah, hey, thank you very much, Lena, look

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Speaker 1: after yourself. Leilah Ashband, sustainability director, It'spike. For more from

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Speaker 1: Hither Duplessylan Drive, listen live to News Talk Said from

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Speaker 1: four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio