Content Filtering for Churches

When the term "content filtering" is used, most churches think of buying something to block unwanted adult content.  This is certainly one important area to address, but there are other things that need to be considered.

The focus of this article will be around solutions that are used to block access to inappropriate web sites, especially for children and youth in reference to "Plan to Protect" requirements.  Of course these measures are also important for all Internet users in our churches.

Other areas related to web content filtering are blocking infected web sites, malware and ransomware protection and other related security concerns.  These will be addressed in other articles.

Each of these solution types below vary in direct costs and in the amount of time needed by a contractor to implement and maintain.

These solutions below vary in some of the fine detail in how they work.  Churches looking to adopt a strong level of protection will likely implement more than one technology.

Three Main Types of Solutions

Software Installed On Computers 

For computers needing web content filtering, software is installed on each computer.  This approach can be especially beneficial to laptop users when they are outside of the church network as they will continue to benefit from web content filtering.

This solution would not provide web content filtering for users who bring their own devices.

Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security is available from TechSoup for 10 users at a price of $77 per year.  This application is a full security product that also includes web content filtering for Windows and MAC computers.

In a later article I will also go into more detail around TechSoup which is a non profit organization where software is donated for an admin fee at much reduced rates in comparison to retail prices.

Hardware Setup To Filter Internet Traffic From The Church

This solution provides protection to all users connected to the church Internet including users who bring their own devices.  No software is installed on workstations or user devices.

A hardware device connected to the router screens all communication to the Internet and blocks web sites according to filter rules.  

Fortigate Next Generation Firewalls are the recommended products in this category, which provide advanced network security and protection including web content filtering.  These devices are capacity sized according to the volume of Internet traffic and volume of user requests.  The cost involves a one time hardware purchase starting around $800 and a yearly subscription costs of $200 per year.  Larger Fortigate devices for larger churches would cost around $1100.

Online Subscription

This solution would cost up to about $1000 per year depending on the size of the church.  It does not require any hardware to be installed at the church and nor any software to be installed on computers.

CIRA is a non-profit organization in Canada that handles all .ca domain names and they also deliver this service called D-Zone DNS Firewall.

This solution works in the same way as Cisco OpenDNS or also known as Umbrella.