AUSTRALIAN COMPUTER SOCIETY INC. 19 July 1993 Mr. Ron Robertson Office of Film and Literature Classification fax: 02 5817099 SUBMISSION ON THE REGULATION OF COMPUTER GAMES AND COMPUTER SOFTWARE Some factors to be considered: * Balancing individual's right to communicate and the need to protect some members of society. * The difficulty of regulating digital media. INDIVIDUAL COMMUNICATION VERSUS PROTECTION OF SOCIETY Individuals have a right to communicate. There may also a perceived need to protect society as a whole, or some individuals at risk from some information. This is at conflict with a right to communicate. While procedures may be introduced to protect vulnerable individuals, such as children, there is a danger that the regulations may risk general freedom of access to information. DIFFICULTY OF REGULATING DIGITAL MATERIAL Several factors make previous regulatory procedures difficult to use for computer based material: * Easier distribution by computer disk and telecommunications: It is very simple to copy and disseminate digital information. Any low cost personal computer can be used to duplicate data on disk. Data communications, using modems and telephone lines, make it possible to distribute information across state and international boundaries. * Blurring of distinction between publication and personal communication: One electronic document can be distributed to hundreds or thousands of people easily. Millions of such documents are transmitted daily. It would be difficult to regulate these transmissions. * Convergence of conventional separate media into one digital medium of communication: Printed, audio and video media and computer programs are combining in digital form into "multi-media". The separate regulations which apply to different conventional material will be difficult to apply to multi-media. POSSIBLE METHODS OF REGULATION * Voluntary self-classification of material: Material for general distribution could be marked with an appropriate classification label. * Voluntary access control to some material, using passwords or encryption: Computer bulletin boards, computer data cartridges and the like can have passwords to prevent access. Material being broadcast can be encoded, requiring a special code to decipher. * Establish a Code of Conduct for producers of material. RECOMMEND AGAINST CENSORSHIP OF DIGITAL MATERIAL In general the ACS advises against the censorship of digital material, due to the difficulty of enforcement and the risk to personal freedoms. Tom Worthington Director of the Community Affairs Board Australian Computer Society Inc. Australian Computer Society is the professional association in Australia for those in the computing and information technology fields. Established in 1966, the ACS has over 14,000 members and on a per capita basis is one of the largest computer societies in the world. ACS activities are announced in the Usenet News group "aus.acs", available on the Internet.