Web filtering

Comtact (ZScaler)

A leading UK provider of security services to the educational sector enabling an environment of collaboration whereby education can flourish securely.

Contact [email protected].

Espion (ZScaler)

Experts at managing and securing an organisation’s most valuable asset – information. We combine our cloud security expertise with the Gartner Magic Quadrant leading Secure Web Gateway Solution: Zscaler.

Contact [email protected].

Gaia Technologies (SmoothWall)

Partnering with Smoothwall to offer complete security, monitoring and protection from malware and other external threats to your network.

Contact [email protected] .

Iboss Cybersecurity (iBoss)

Preferred supplier - cloud based services
Preferred supplier - hybrid cloud/local appliance based services

A patented, functionally rich web security platform utilising next-generation cloud technology, uniquely delivering elastic performance with granular reporting.

Contact [email protected].

Insight (Smoothwall)

Insight (SmoothWall) SmoothWall UTM and SWG offer 360° filtering , any content on the page, search term, domain, image, comment or text.

Contact [email protected].

Pinacl Solutions (SmoothWall)

Preferred supplier - local appliance based services

Drives innovation by crafting pioneering technology solutions that enable our customers to unlock new possibilities within their business.

Contact [email protected].

Softcat (CensorNet)

Offer specialist IT security experts, combined with industry-wide knowledge and focused customer service, to deliver trusted solutions to organisations.

Contact [email protected].

View operational requirement used to determine selected suppliers.

View contract notice (pdf).

View contract award notice (pdf). 

Platform

Filtering

Key: Included Included, Non-mandatory non-mandatory, Mandatory mandatory, uses safesearch uses SafeSearch

Monitoring

Reporting

Key: Included Included, Not included not included

Supported admin gateways

Suppliers

Improved safeguarding and compliance

Our solutions help you to safeguard learners from inappropriate or illegal content on the web.  Internet Watch Foundation and the Unlawful Extremism Content filters also help you comply with the government’s Prevent agenda by blocking access to radical or extremist content.  Together these measures help protect your organisation’s reputation and possible legal challenges.

Flexible service delivery

The framework solutions are available 24/7, so you don’t have to worry about services not being available at certain times of the day or night.  You can choose from custom or pre-built filtering and reporting options.  Additional web monitoring and reporting services will also help you to distinguish between someone stumbling upon a prohibited site and someone deliberately returning to that site for long periods at a time.

Efficiency gains

You can implement more fine-grained filtering options to allow access to specific groups or individuals and at particularly times of the day, enabling more flexibility for your users whilst also saving on bandwidth and increasing user productivity.

Saved purchasing time

We’ve saved you time and money by selecting a number of suppliers as part of a rigorous OJEU competitive tender process, so you can choose the preferred supplier or run a mini-competition with the suppliers we’ve selected.

The multi-supplier web filtering and monitoring framework agreement is available to UK higher education institutions, further education and specialist colleges, research councils and other bodies whose core purpose is the support or advancement of further or higher education or research.

The service is also available to any National Research and Education Network (NREN) and the community it services where the NREN has either a direct connection to the Janet network or the NREN is a member of the GÉANT consortium.

Service description

The service allows each organisation to manage its own list of blocked or permitted URLs for filtering in accordance with the organisation’s local policy and to tailor these filters to its needs. The filter settings are managed by authorised individuals at the organisations.

Hours of service

The service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year.

Target availability

The target availability is 99.5% during the hours of service defined above, measured monthly over a 12 month period, excluding service-affecting maintenance.

The combined scheduled maintenance and emergency maintenance time for the services will not be more than 1% of service time and not more than 0.2% of service time may be emergency maintenance. Scheduled maintenance is normally carried out with at least two weeks’ notice.

Fault management

Faults on the service may be reported at any time to the service provider by tel: 0845 123 7821 or via email: [email protected].

This helpline is staffed from 8am-6pm on Monday to Friday, (except Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday and the first and last Monday in May).

Faults will be progressed between these hours.

Resilience

The service has a mirrored set of proxy servers located in a separate data centre and has a failover system in place.

Premium services

The service offers enhanced features including user-based filtering, utilising Active Directory it enables individual filtering rules to be applied to users or groups of users. This is available at an extra charge. For further details contact [email protected].

Security

Please ensure your organisation understands and adheres to the security policy.

Customer responsibilities

The customer is responsible, prior to using the service, for:

• Configuring the web filtering system for their own particular needs
• Configuring the local web browsers and routers/firewalls to ensure that all access to the web is routed through the web filtering system

The customer is also responsible on an ongoing basis for maintaining contact details.

Charges

The standard service is centrally funded for Janet network-connected higher education organisations, further education colleges, specialist colleges and the personal and community development learning community. Other Janet network-connected or non Janet network- connected organisations may purchase access to the service. Enhancements such as user based filtering will be chargeable for all organisations. For further details contact [email protected].

Request for service

Request this service via the Janet service desk on tel: 0300 300 2212 or via email: [email protected].

Service delivery time

The service will be delivered within five business days, as defined in SLD definitions, of receipt of all necessary customer information.

Terms and conditions

Please ensure your organisation understands and adheres to the terms and conditions

Escalation

If you are experiencing an issue with the service, and wish to escalate the issue contact us via the service desk on tel: 0300 300 2212 or via email: [email protected].

Technical section

This service supports only IPv4 (it does not support IPv6).

The web filtering service allows organisations to:

• Filter using the mandatory IWF and unlawful extremist content (Prevent) lists
• Manage filter lists through a web-based administrative interface
• Apply filter lists by the time of day
• Customise the page that is displayed to the user when a web page is blocked
• Quickly permit or deny access to a specific page on the Internet
• Choose whether or not certain words or search terms are appropriate
• Prevent users from downloading particular file extensions such as .mp3 or .exe, that can waste Internet bandwidth or pose security threats
• Choose from existing filtering lists developed over years of experience: for example, a list of pages containing sexual content
• Apply individual filtering rules to users or groups of users with user based filtering

The web filtering service is a centralised web content filtering service, provided by RM plc and is based on the RM SafetyNet Plus product

• Available 24/7
• No need to purchase specific on-site hardware
• A centrally managed service, which reduces management burden
• Modern visual interface to give administrators a more enhanced experience - simple and uncluttered layouts are friendly and intuitive
• Customise the service to meet your organisation's requirements using the web interface and manage the service at any time, eg making changes to filter lists
• Choose from pre-built categories that the service supplier has developed over years of experience; constantly updated as website content is added or amended
• Offers you the ability to apply different filtering rules at different times of day, eg you can distinguish between core hours and out-of-hours usage
• Prevent users from downloading file extensions such as .mp3 or .exe that can waste internet bandwidth or pose security threat
• Centrally managed proxy servers to safeguard users from access to unsuitable material
• Dynamic failover which offers complete resilience in the event of a hardware failure, ensuring staff remain connected to the internet

SSL interception for Google (free)

The SSL filtering intercepts and inspects all Google search results since they moved to SSL encryption in June 2015. This optional feature reduces the risk of inappropriate search results, including images, being displayed to your user community.

User-based filtering (cost applies - see pricing for details)

This feature will sync with your active directory so that all your organisation’s users will be visible through the administrator portal, giving you more control over how your filtering works.

This new level of customisation will enable the administrator to group users together by subject, tutor, activity etc and give a set group bespoke access to certain websites at certain times of day. For example, your adult education art class will be able to access life art websites, (ie with nudity), between the hours of 19:00 and 22:00.

Installing the AD plug in for user-based filtering

For further information on web filtering, including configuration and set-up, terms and conditions and technical support, visit the web filtering service pages on the community site. 

Prices exclude VAT.

The service is intended to provide web filtering for customer organisations that do not have the resources to support it themselves, or organisations with certain specific needs. Each application will be approved at our discretion.

Terms and conditions

Use of this service is subject to the:

• Eligibility policy
• Acceptable use policy
• Security policy

Your responsibilities

• Configure web filtering policies for your particular requirements
• Configure the local web browsers and routers/firewalls to ensure that all access to the web is routed through the web filtering system

Register for web filtering

To register for the service on behalf of your organisation, complete the online application form. If you have any questions, email the service desk. 

If there is a known issue with the web filtering service, details of the issue, monitoring updates and eventual resolution will be posted on a status page provided by RM Education.

You can also use this page to subscribe to updates on the web filtering service and to be emailed updates about specific issues. Details of RM scheduled maintenance are also available on this status page. 

Fault reporting and technical support 

This service is managed and supported by RM Education on our behalf and is monitored 24 hours a day. In the event of any disruption to the service during working hours RM will respond to any such service failure within one hour of notification (provided that notification is received before 16:00 Monday – Friday, excluding public holidays).

RM will respond to service failures detected outside working hours, but without any guarantee of response time, other than it will be within one hour of the start of the next working day. Back-ups of all updates will be made every 24 hours.

The RM support service is available from 08:00-18:00 Monday to Friday (except Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday and the first and last Monday in May). Faults will be progressed between these hours.

Telephone (preferred): 0845 123 7821 or email: [email protected] 

Check that you have working internet access before logging a call.

If your web service is not working properly, it is strongly recommended that you contact your network manager in the first instance, to help diagnose where the problem lies. For instance, are other Jisc services working properly? Otherwise contact RM if:

• There is believed to be a technical problem with access to the service
• The local filtering list cannot be updated
• The filtering list is not working properly

All other enquiries

For further information on web filtering, including configuration and set-up, terms and conditions and technical support, visit the web filtering service pages on the community site. 

Email the service desk to: 

• Change your organisation's contact details
• Comment or ask questions about the way the service works, the level of service received, or the documentation for the service