To ask the Minister of Education to detail whether his Department captures when pornographic materials are (i) searched for; and (ii) accessed, on primary school and secondary school C2K Internet Network Services.

My Department does not capture or hold information on whether pornographic material is searched for or accessed on C2K Internet Network Services used by primary and secondary schools.

Responsibility for the provision and operation of C2K services rests with the Education Authority (EA). The EA’s C2K network uses proactive filtering and security controls designed to prevent access to inappropriate online content. Schools can also choose to use additional safeguarding tools which provide monitoring and alerts to designated school staff. Responsibility for reviewing and acting on any such alerts rests with each individual school.

The EA’s C2K service does not monitor individual attempts to access websites blocked by its filtering system due to the scale of the network and the volume of internet traffic generated across the service.