Latest / Best of Business / Leela Ashford: Spark Sustainability Director on the company blocking all AI-generated child sexual abuse images

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Leela Ashford: Spark Sustainability Director on the company blocking all AI-generated child sexual abuse images · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk st B.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: Spark has become the first New Zealand telco to block
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  Speaker 3: websites that are hosting AI generated child sex abuse material
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  Speaker 3: stuff that's non photographic. Now, what that means is it
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  Speaker 3: doesn't look realistic. It's cartoon style images or artistic impressions
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  Speaker 3: of child abuse material. Leela Ashford is Spark Sustainability director
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  Speaker 3: and with me Hi, Leela.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, Heather, how are you going good?
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  Speaker 3: Thank you? Now, the Internet Watch Foundation recers they've seen
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  Speaker 3: about a four hundred percent increase of this kind of
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  Speaker 3: 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 3: Yeah, and so are they the ones who tell you
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  Speaker 3: 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, it
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  Speaker 2: would be illegal for us to access it. So the
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  Speaker 2: way that it works is IWF has its own organization
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  Speaker 2: in place, It has appropriate people who are trained to
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  Speaker 2: identify this content. They create a list that automatically, it's
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  Speaker 2: automated to come into our network, and then we block
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  Speaker 2: it and that list gets updated around twice a day,
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  Speaker 2: so it's very current.
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  Speaker 3: 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 the
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  Speaker 2: IWF list itself can be anywhere from thousands to tens
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  Speaker 2: of thousands, but because it's updated twice a day, that
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  Speaker 2: number does change over time.
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  Speaker 3: What about a site like Twitter? Would you go as
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  Speaker 3: 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 into instruments. So the only
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  Speaker 2: thing that spark can do is block at a total
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  Speaker 2: network level. So that means we block a whole domain
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  Speaker 2: or a whole website. So when IWS says to us,
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  Speaker 2: this whole website is full of this awful material, then
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  Speaker 2: we block it. But if it was something hosted within
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  Speaker 2: a Facebook page or a post for example. The only
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  Speaker 2: tool we have available is to block Facebook for everyone
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  Speaker 2: on the Spark network, which obviously we can't do. So
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  Speaker 2: you do need a number of different interventions to tackle
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  Speaker 2: this issue.
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  Speaker 3: But that is though, Leela, I guess, I mean that
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  Speaker 3: shows just the extent of what we can do, which
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  Speaker 3: is that we can't get rid of it all right,
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  Speaker 3: because even if we've blocked every single bad website out there,
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  Speaker 3: there will still be people who use Twitter to share
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  Speaker 3: 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 3: Hey, are you worried? Unrelated, but are you worried about
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  Speaker 3: the three G shutdown?
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  Speaker 2: We're doing a lot of work on the three G shutdown. Obviously,
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  Speaker 2: this is you know, the old version, the old G,
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  Speaker 2: and we're now into four G and we've got five
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  Speaker 2: G coming we're.
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  Speaker 3: 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 or
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  Speaker 2: start to say, hey, you're dialing from a device that
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  Speaker 2: is impacted. There are devices like what you're talking about
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  Speaker 2: that are not necessarily connected to us, like IoT sensors
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  Speaker 2: or medical alarms, and generally those businesses and managing their communications,
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  Speaker 2: but we're working very closely with them to ensure that
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  Speaker 2: we're giving everyone a really long heads up before it
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  Speaker 2: shuts down next year.
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  Speaker 3: Hey, thank you very much, Lela, look after yourself. Leila ASHBITDT,
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  Speaker 3: Sustainability Director, it Spike.
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