Today BASC have launched a new campaign aimed at mobile phone users. The campaign is to encourage people to get in contact with BASC via the website and report any problems they have experienced in accessing shooting related websites on their mobile phones. To tackle this problem BASC is already working with Virgin Media to develop solutions and they are willing to work with other networks as well, but need you to get involved.
Part of the problem is due to age restrictions on the mobile phones, and although these can be changed in a matter of hours, according to BASC, and we agree such a solution is only “treating the symptom and not the cause”. Such a solution also posses a problem for those who may need timely access to information either on the shooting websites or on other websites which may impose similar filtering such as Google Maps, for example whilst travelling.
We ourselves have been discussing a similar issue with a UK airport over its use of URL filter, which regrettably blocked our own website and I have personally been unable to find any information on a particular shooting ground via the Google Maps application on my Android mobile phone. We encourage you all to be on the look out for such problems and report them to BASC and your network provider as discussed on the BASC website.