UK Prime Minister David Cameron announced that public Wi-Fi and most households will start having filters automatically in place starting in 2014 in order to protect children from stumbling across hard-core pornography while online.

According to The Telegraph, Cameron announced the creation of “family friendly Wi-Fi” during a speech in London, saying that more action is necessary to protect the innocence of children.

“Online pornography is corroding childhood. In the darkest corners of the internet, there are things going on that are a direct danger to our children, and that must be stamped out,” he said.

“I feel profoundly as a politician, and as a father, that the time for action has come.”

He added: “My argument is that the internet is not a side-line to ‘real life’ or an escape from ‘real life’; it is real life. It has an impact: on the children who view things that harm them, on the vile images of abuse that pollute minds and cause crime, on the very values that underpin our society.”

His new plan will require every internet user in the country to make an active choice about filtering adult content when they begin services and to turn off a setting that has been preset to provide parental controls. Police and other authorities will be given more power to investigate parts of the internet where pedophiles are known to share illegal images among themselves.

In addition, a joint British and American “task force” will be created to tackle obscene websites, while Google and other search engine providers will be required to draw up a “blacklist” of the most depraved and illegal search terms, the Telegraph reports.

Mr. Cameron said parents and internet companies must take more responsibility for the online world.

“We have got to be more active, more aware, more responsible about what happens online,” he will say. “I mean ‘we’ collectively: government, parents, internet providers and platforms, educators, and charities. . . . We’ve got to work together across both the challenges I have set out. This is, quite simply, about how we protect our children and their innocence.”

Morality in Media, America’s top obscenity watchdog organization, is applauding the move and believes it should be replicated in the U.S.

“Cable and Internet providers in the United States could follow suit without any government action,” wrote Dawn Hawkins of Morality in Media. “By automatically providing filters, which customers could then turn off if they chose, children would be protected from harmful content. Many parents do not realize the extensive access to pornography that their children have.”

According to Enough is Enough, an internet safety group, American children are now beginning to consume hardcore pornography at an average age of 11 years. By the time they are 16, four out of five are regularly accessing pornography sites online.

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