Australia's corporate watchdog accidentally blocked one quarter of a million web addresses this March, Greens Senator for WA Scott Ludlam uncovered in last night's Senate Estimates hearings.

ASIC admitted to inadvertently filtering 250,000 addresses in March on top of 1200 websites it was known to have accidentally blocked in April. ASIC directed internet service providers to block sites it believed were defrauding Australian citizens by IP address instead of domain name, dragging thousands of innocuous or dormant sites into the same trap as a handful of ‘illegal' ones.

In an ominous escalation of internet filtering in Australia, an unidentified agency under the remit of the Attorney-General is also using section 313 of the Telecommunications Act to block an unknown set of websites – bringing the number of government agencies filtering up to three,  Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said today. 

“We now know that in addition to the ASIC and Australian Federal Police, a third agency has used the section 313 power to block websites, but the Government will not reveal which,” Senator Ludlam said.