Australia's broadband ministry on Monday defended the country's upcoming Internet filtering pilot, and acknowledged that the plan could include P2P traffic like BitTorrent.

"It is understood that technology exists to filter peer-to-peer networks," according to an FAQ posted online. "If such technology is proposed as part of the pilot by an ISP it will be considered."

An Internet filtering pilot is set to kick off later this month and run through the first half of 2009, according to Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy. The Department of Broadband, Communications, and the Digital Economy is currently looking for a "cross section of industry; including small, medium and large ISPs; and metropolitan, regional, rural and mobile providers" to participate in the pilot.

The government has already consulted with the Internet Industry Association (IIA), the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) and a number of individual ISPs and mobile operators.

Participating ISPs "will strengthen their brand image" and will receive limited funding to help implement the filtering technology, according to the department.

ISP filtering is part of a larger, $125.8 million government cyber-safety plan that is intended to protect children from harmful Internet content, Conroy said. He denied that the plan would hinder the openness of the Web.

"Freedom of speech is fundamentally important in a democratic society and there was never any suggestion that the Australian government would seek to block political content," Conroy wrote in a Monday blog post. "In this context, claims that the government's policy is analogous to the approach taken by countries such as Iran, China and Saudi Arabia are not justified."

Australian ISPs are already subject to restrictions based upon the country's rating system for movies, computer games, publications, and other online content, Conroy said. That system, dubbed the National Classification Scheme, allows the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to issue take-down notices to objectionable material.

"All the government is now seeking to do is to examine how technology can assist in filtering internationally-hosted content," Conroy wrote.

But will this assistance affect chat programs or P2P programs like BitTorrent? Yes, according to the department.

Web filters in other countries often incorporate blacklists of prohibited Web sites, but blacklists do not include P2P or chat.

"The department understands that a number of ISP filtering products allow blocking of non-Web based applications, and that vendors are undertaking development in this area," according to the FAQ. "To the extent possible, the pilot will test the effectiveness of more sophisticated ISP level filtering services and products to help parents manage use of non-Web applications."

The ACMA currently maintains a list of 1,300 blacklisted URLs. The filtering pilot will expand that list to 10,000 URLs – none of which will be released publicly. The pilot will include two levels – one that will test against the blacklist and another that will allow ISP customers to "have greater choice in what is filtered."

"The use of approximately 10,000 sites in this test should not be seen as reflecting an expectation on the part of government that the ACMA blacklist will increase to 10,000," according to the FAQ. "The number has no significance beyond the fact that it has been raised in consultations as a possible tipping-point in terms of network performance for some types of filtering, and therefore needs to be looked at in the pilot."

Not everyone is convinced that Conroy's efforts are simply about protecting children.

The Digital Liberty Coalition hosted rallies in Sydney and Melbourne earlier this month, and said that the recent blacklisting of Wikipedia in the U.K. was "a taste of things to come here" if the ISP filtering plan proceeds.