New category: UK Sanctions

On Friday 29th of April, The Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) (No. 9) Regulations 2022 SI 2022/477 came into force, requiring all UK providers of internet access services to take reasonable steps to impose restrictions of internet services to, or for the benefit of, persons designated by the Secretary of State.

We have introduced a new "UK Sanctions" filtering category, which blocks access to internet services that are known to be subject to sanctions under the regulation.

Unfortunately the contents of this category cannot be considered to be a complete list of sanctioned internet services, as the UK government has only provided a list of sanctioned persons and not a list of sanctioned internet services.  We cannot reasonably identify all applicable services based upon only a list of persons.  If the situation in Ukraine continues, we hope that the UK government will provide more appropriate information at a later date to allow this category to become more comprehensive.

Whilst we cannot provide legal advice, it is likely that schools would be considered to be providers of internet access services and we therefore recommend that you enable this category on your Opendium system, Everyone group.  The communications regulator, OFCOM, has been authorised to impose penalties of up to £1,000,000.

In order to enable this category, log into your Opendium system and go to Web Proxy -> Filter Categories.  Click the "Everyone" group.  Click the "Add Category" button and a list of categories will pop up.  Tick the "UK Sanctions" category and click the "Ok" button.  Finally, click "Save Configuration".

You may find the following independent legal analysis useful: https://decoded.legal/blog/tag/sanctions

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact support@opendium.com.