NO-HEADLINE

American computer programs which prevent children from accessing pornography and "undesirable information" on the Internet, also bar them from many British sources holding useful or entirely innocent information. Among the British sites which cannot be accessed when using the programs are those for the the Prison Lexicon (which provides information about penal reform), the computing department of Queen Mary and Westfield College and Telephone Information Services, which offers weather and share reports.

Between them, the programs - such as Cyber Patrol, Netnanny and Cybersitter - prevent access to tens of thousands of sites on the Internet. But they effectively apply an American system of morals - on religion, weapons, drugs, alcohol and sex - to the data which British children might be expected to know about, or could obtain from newspapers.