Home Office slip points to Japanese porn site | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Home Office slip points to Japanese porn site
The Home Office has been forced to amend its website after a user was directed to a Japanese pornographic site by mistake.
A member of the public was diverted to the site while looking for information about anti-terrorism powers on the site of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism.
He clicked on a link to an external site for the Technical Advisory Board, which advises ministers on internet companies.
But instead of prosaic data about Internet Service Providers (ISPs), he was instead presented with a cascade of pornographic images.
The man contacted the BBC, which alerted Home Office officials, and the link was removed.
Although the Home Office first believed the target site had been the victim of hackers, it eventually transpired that the address had simply been bought by a pornography site when the domain name expired.
A Home Office spokesman stressed that the site in question was external and not hosted by the government.
He said: "There was a link on the page that said Technical Advisory Board website. But when you clicked on the link it took you to the porn.
"We were notified this morning and removed the link immediately."