Example of a PICS metatag

The following is an example of the standard PICS metatag generated from the ICRA site. The URL in bold will need to reflect the page in which the metatag is to be inserted, not the example department URL as is illustrated here.

In this example, the rating (defined in the parentheses) is ‘none of the above’ in all categories - the website contains neither sex nor violence, etc. The tag includes elements for backward compatibility with ICRA’s forerunner - RSACi.

Once this rating has been achieved the website can display the ICRA logo on the homepage to illustrate that the procedure has been completed. This is optional and a range of different colours is available.

More complex example to show flexibility

This metatag does not specify the page or site to which it applies. Such a PICS label will be applied only to the page it is on. Furthermore, note that the lz 1 term (which is ICRA code for “none of the above” in the language category) has been set to lz 0. This means that the label does not make a positive declaration that there is no potentially offensive material on this page. Such a label might be useful, for example, for pages which carry quoted speech including swear words but which most readers would not deem “offensive” in the context given. You can make analogous changes in other categories.

Labels may be edited at will -- but watch the syntax! ICRA does not need to be informed about every change made and has other tools available that may be useful.

The e-Government Interoperability Framework can be found at:

* Internet Content Rating Assocation [External link]
* Digital watermarking of image {External link]