Web Filtering for CIPA Compliance: Essentials for Protecting Students Online

Web filtering for CIPA compliance is critical both for E-Rate funding and for ensuring students are safe from inappropriate content and dangerous online material.

This guide will help you understand web filtering as it applies to CIPA and how you can best ensure your organization complies to avoid the need for uncomfortable conversations later on.

Understanding Web Filtering for CIPA Compliance

Introduced in 2000, the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) created an expectation for schools and libraries that receive discounts through the E-Rate program to protect children from harmful online material.

Generally speaking, this harmful material can be broken down into a few categories, including:

  • Obscene materials (as defined in section 1460 of title 18, United States Code)
  • Child pornography (as defined in section 2256 of title 18, United States Code)
  • Material considered harmful to minors (as defined below)
    • “(F) HARMFUL TO MINORS.–The term `harmful to minors’ means any picture, image, graphic image file, or other visual depiction that—
      • (i) taken as a whole and with respect to minors, appeals to a prurient interest in nudity, sex, or excretion;
      • (ii) depicts, describes, or represents, in a patently offensive way with respect to what is suitable for minors, an actual or simulated sexual act or sexual contact, actual or simulated normal or perverted sexual acts, or a lewd exhibition of the genitals; and
      • (iii) taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as to minors. 

This does not establish any limitations or prohibitions on other types of content that can be blocked. 

Along with what is outlined by CIPA, school districts are free to further block content deemed inappropriate, such as:

  • Violent materials
  • Access to streaming or gaming
  • Regionally inappropriate content (certain religious or occult materials)
  • Content around drugs and alcohol
  • Social media
  • Chat rooms
  • Inappropriate news and blogs

Web filtering helps accomplish each task, ensuring that students and other minors are blocked from the above types of prohibited materials.

Not all web filters are created equal, though. It’s critical to understand which software will fully block this material to avoid potential issues down the road.

In this article, you’ll learn about the different options for web filtering software, what we at Mandry Technology recommend, and why.

What Other Actions Are Required For CIPA Compliance

To be fully CIPA compliant, in addition to web filtering, other requirements must be met. The actions and policies below must be in place to ensure full compliance and avoid losing E-Rate funding.

Internet Safety Policies

Every school that accepts E-Rate funding must have an internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. Before the policy is approved and adopted, at least one public meeting must be held with reasonable notice.

According to the FCC CIPA guidelines, the internet safety policy should address each of the following:

  • Access by minors to inappropriate matter on the Internet;
  • The safety and security of minors when using electronic mail, chat rooms, and other forms of direct electronic communications;
  • Unauthorized access, including so-called “hacking” and other unlawful activities by minors online;
  • Unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal information regarding minors; and
  • Measures restricting minors’ access to materials harmful to them.

Active Internet Monitoring

The FCC CIPA guidelines state that schools subject to CIPA have additional requirements, including:

“Their Internet safety policies must include monitoring the online activities of minors.”

FCC CIPA Guidelines

It’s important to note that this requirement applies specifically to schools. This means that school districts must implement internet usage monitoring policies across all campuses and devices minors use at their schools.

Some of the activities that need to be included in the monitoring policy include:

  • Web activity
  • Email activity
  • Chat activity
  • Social media activity

It should also be noted that interpretations of CIPA vary regarding monitoring and filtering on school-issued devices used off-campus.

Thus far, the FCC has not officially clarified the issue. However, the common implementation of the policy is to monitor and filter school-issued devices off-site to avoid parents’ complaints, further shield the school from unwanted incidents, and better protect students from potentially harmful content.

Internet Conduct Education Programs

The second requirement that schools must meet to ensure CIPA compliance is the implementation of an internet conduct training program for students.

This section can be open to interpretation, but training programs should cover the following according to Universal Service Administration Co.:

  • Access by minors to inappropriate materials on the Internet
  • The safety and security of minors when using electronic mail, chat rooms, and other forms of direct electronic communication
  • Unauthorized access, including “hacking” and other unlawful activities by minors online
  • Unauthorized disclosure, use, and dissemination of personal information regarding minors
  • Measures designed to restrict minors’ access to harmful materials

Schools especially emphasize educating students about cyberbullying and online safety when using chat rooms.

How does web filtering work?

Web filtering is a core aspect of CIPA, so it’s important that all stakeholders, not just those involved with technical implementation, understand how it works.

To that end, there are several different types of web filtering technology, each with different use cases and implementation methods.

It’s important to note there is no perfect solution. Each of these filtering methods carries tradeoffs between the level of strictness and balancing the different needs of students, teachers, staff, and other users of school networks. 

Keyword Filtering

Keyword filtering identifies specific keywords on a website or in pieces of content based on a preselected list. 

The main benefit is that you can target a wide range of content, from obscene material to violent content or anything else that might be deemed offensive in your community.

One significant downside is that you can block legitimate websites or articles needed for research due to specific keywords in the article. Examples of this might be medical websites or news sites that are flagged due to specific articles.

Image Filtering

Image filtering is similar in practice to keyword filtering except for visual content. The software scans through images and looks for specific qualities such as nudity, violence, or other inappropriate themes.

This is a critical component for CIPA compliance and must be implemented correctly, as much of the content filtered nowadays is visual in nature.

URL/Domain Filtering

Proper filtering software allows for the filtering of entire websites or specific URLs on larger websites. This can make it easier to block obscene websites, file-sharing sites, gaming sites, streaming sites, and other inappropriate websites students shouldn’t be using.

On a more granular level, you can block specific URLs on websites that are otherwise important for students to use. For example, you could block specific articles in a medical journal while allowing access to other content that could be important during a student’s research and studies. 

Category Filtering

Similar to keyword filtering but working more broadly, category filtering allows for the blocking of entire websites grouped into specific categories.

This type of filtering makes it easier to block specific categories of content that would be objectionable to school districts and which would violate CIPA guidelines, such as drugs, violent content, pornography, etc.

What Should We Look For In Web Filtering Software?

Not all web filters are created equally, especially in our modern world of bring your own device (BYOD), remote learning, and with students more technologically savvy than ever before.

With that said, here are key features the Mandry Technology technical team looks for in any web filtering software before implementing or recommending it.

Cloud-Based

Traditional on-premises filtering solutions can be expensive and limiting in their capabilities and configurability. A cloud-based web filtering solution that provides more granular control is the solution to this.

From iboss Cloud Web Filtering

There is also the added benefit of being able to monitor and filter content delivered to devices across any location, which is important for school-owned devices being used off-premise or BYOD devices.

Scalability

This is a particularly glaring issue if you work in a small—to medium-sized school district. Planning for future growth can often feel like divination.

However, when it comes to the tools your district uses for regulatory compliance, planning for future growth and scalability is critical. While the cheapest filtering option out there may make sense with just one school building, will it scale up when you open a new building or have a sudden influx of students?

Having a filtering solution that is easily scalable can remove crippling pain points whenever your school, district, or library experiences user growth.

Ease of Use

It goes without saying, but web filtering software should be simple enough that all parties involved can work with it, while also saving you time as the technician putting it into place.

This means everything from the user interface to the customization settings should be intuitive and simple to navigate while still providing the granular level of control needed to get the job done.

Active Monitoring

For schools especially, active monitoring is a key component of your ability to secure E-Rate funding, as noted above.

Ideally, you want one piece of software that covers as many of your needs as possible. So, having active monitoring capabilities within your web filtering solution makes sense.

You can more easily see where students spend their time online, either at school or using school-owned devices. From here, you can get greater insight into sites that potentially need to be blocked or URLs that have been missed by the filter.

Reporting and Analytics

Along with active monitoring, regular reports can help you understand potential trends in students’ search and online usage behavior and anticipate unaddressed problem scenarios.

A good web filtering tool will provide you with regular real-time and historical reporting. Not only can this better inform your school or district’s IT department, but can also help minimize liability by having a record of usage that can be referred to if needed.

Customization Capabilities

Finally, having a web filtering solution that can be customized to the needs of different schools is critical. 

School IT and cybersecurity departments are constantly trying to balance the needs of different user cohorts, which can be challenging, to say the least. From administrative staff to teachers to students of different ages, balancing the need for filtering with each cohort’s usage needs is a struggle.

Your web filtering technology should work with you, not against you, in creating a solution that balances the needs of all users of your school’s or district’s networks. 

Choosing a web filtering solution that offers a high degree of customizability while remaining user-friendly is critical, and it will help with other needs, such as scalability.

Does CIPA Require Filtering Staff Devices When Off-Site?

One final area of consideration is how to deal with staff devices. Historically, this has been a complex and nuanced topic and one that has been left a bit ambiguous. 

However, the FCC has provided clarification in other documentation that can guide your school’s or district’s decision on whether to filter staff devices offsite.

The FCC’s official position is that the device’s ownership dictates the need for CIPA compliance, regardless of the network it is being used on.

If in doubt, filtering and monitoring school devices, whether used by staff or students, is a good policy to ensure compliance and prevent potential liability issues.

What CIPA-Compliant Web Filtering Solution Does Mandry Recommend?

Considering the above criteria for a web filtering solution, here at Mandry Technology, we both use it in-house and recommend it to our clients, iboss. This is doubly true for our client partners in critical industries such as schools and hospitals.

We’ve partnered with iboss owing to the simple-to-use, highly customizable, and scalable solution. Their Zero Trust Secure Access Service helps to replace VPN, SWG, SD-WAN, Firewall, CASB, and Browser Isolation tools with a consolidated solution that is scalable and tailored to the modern landscape.