HARRISBURG – Rep. Jim Gregory (R-Blair) said Monday his legislation, House Bill 1501, will ensure that children are protected from accessing pornography on mobile devices.
“While we certainly should be concerned about children having access to inappropriate sexual content and pornography in the school setting, we must also be diligent to ensure children are not able to access the same material on mobile devices outside of the school setting,” Gregory said.
“When children are exposed to explicit sexual content at an early age, either by accident or indoctrination, it has a significantly negative impact on their future development and ability to have a successful outcome. It is imperative we protect our children.”
Gregory’s legislation, entitled the “Protection of Minors from Unfiltered Devices Act,” would require new smart phones and tablets activated in the Commonwealth to have a filter enabled that would protect children from finding harmful material online such as pornography.
This technology already exists and can be easily placed on devices. The filters can also be disabled by adults, meaning requiring activation of filters at purchase will not impinge on the ability of anyone of legal age from accessing anything on their phone or tablet.
In addition, support for protecting children from internet pornography was the subject of a recent editorial from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“Ensuring children are protected from exposure to pornography should not be a partisan issue,” Gregory noted.
“I hope more colleagues from both sides of the aisle will join my effort to ensure children can be children and be protected from this explicit content.”