EMBC Portal

To protect users from browsing inappropriate sites, embc-pl uses the internet content filtering software NetSweeper.  This software is compliant with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) in the US , and has been adapted for education use in the UK .  NetSweeper is a centralised filtering system which attempts to categorise sites accessed by any of its worldwide user base. internet filtering is then determined by those categories, which are flagged to be blocked by embc-pl at each of the network wide filter levels. Local control of filtering is also permitted within these categories.  Embc operates 4 filter levels, with level1 being the least restrictive and level 4 (the Becta approved level) being the most restrictive.

Filtering Categories

The table below shows the categories as of September 2006. An X denotes the category is blocked:

If a user visits a site that has not yet been categorized, then the system automatically scans and categorizes the site. This process normally takes under a minute, however it may take up to 5 minutes in relation to a website which has not previously been attempted to be accessed by another Netsweeper user worldwide. If this does not happen, please inform the embc service desk and the site will be added manually if necessary  If this does not happen, please inform the embc-pl service desk and the site will be added manually if necessary  Please note that no filtering software can offer a 100% guarantee to prevent inappropriate material reaching users.  User Organisations must have in place their own management systems for ensuring that inappropriate content is reported to the embc Service Desk.

There is additional functionality within the filtering setting, allowing a User Organisation to set up filtering for different groups of users, time-dependent filtering and CG dependent filtering.  For full details and further documentation, please refer to the documentation available on the Customer Services Portal..

embc Email Filtering

In order for email filtering to comply with the Becta Accreditation standards, User Organisation must use the embc provided webmail service.  Embc uses Microsoft Exchange for its webmail service to User Organisations.  All embc internal and external email is filtered using the EMF filtering system.

If User Organisations have their own email server, this may not conform to the accreditation standards. Any User Organisations with their own mail servers must take full responsibility for internal User Organisation email filtering.

Embc filtering operates based on key words in the text and in the title of the email.  As with any filtering, this can never be guaranteed to be 100% effective.

Embc filtering also provides scanning for pornographic images.  Again, this filtering is not 100% accurate and it is therefore essential that User Organisation management has its own monitoring and reporting policy in place for email use.

Use of Email – aliasing and spoofing

Email aliasing is acceptable over the embc network. 

Spoofing constitutes identity theft, which is a criminal act and is therefore a breach of embc policy.  User Organisations should ensure that they have in place measures to deal with cases of email spoofing by their users.