Paedophiles accessing child pornography or grooming youngsters over the Internet will face up to five years in jail as new legislation comes into force in May.

The Criminal Code Amendment Act 2007 gives sentences of three to five years to persons accessing or possessing sexual images of under-16s. Those involved in the production or distribution of child porn, and anyone convicted of 'luring' children via Internet communication, face a five to ten year jail sentence.

The Act ¿ passed in Parliament last year, comes into effect on May 7. Government says it is part of a "zero tolerance" stance on child abuse and pornography. The Department of E-Commerce has also been working on online safety initiatives, with a public-private sector partnership with cell phone and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to be announced next month.

A spokesman said: "The project relates to providing information to the public in Bermuda on online safety and encouraging safe online practices."

ISPs can provide software to customers to block access to pornographic sites, such as through parental controls, but otherwise, companies have no control or means of identification of those accessing child porn.

Jeremy Dejonj, a help desk operator for Transact.bm, said: "There's nothing the ISPs can do as if we were to start blocking one website, we would have to block all of them.

"We don't have any way of knowing what our customer sees. We just have routers to take customers from one website to another, so the routers don't see what the user sees.

"If someone was aware of a user accessing this kind of material then you could try to put an application on the computer being used. But during the transmission we wouldn't be able to see anything. We are like a highway, going from the home computer to the website computer, so we don't really know what's going on.

"It is pretty much beyond our control."

Mr. Dejonj said all this could change if manufacturers developed more advanced technology. "If they started coming out with more advanced routers that can actually see things, then maybe," he said.

This week Special Agent Flint Waters, head of the Wyoming Internet Crimes Task Force, reported research findings that at least 162 computers in Bermuda have traded in child pornography.

His research only focused on one of ten existing child porn networks, meaning the problem could be much more widespread. The figures however, were damaging enough, with some media such as the Toronto Star reporting that the Island is one of the top three global jurisdictions engaged in sharing the explicit images.

Mr. Waters admitted the statistics could be distorted due to Bermuda's small population and because the yardstick of distribution rates was per capita. He has however, offered to share his research with the Bermuda Police Service. This includes the locations of the suspect computers.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Bermuda Police Service said it had not yet confirmed the accuracy of the Special Agent's figures.

"Although a formal request for information has been made to the US authorities, the Bermuda Police Service has also made contact with Mr. Waters, who has shared some information with us. Officers are currently investigating that information and it is inappropriate to comment on possible lines of inquiry," said the spokesman.

He said Police had welcomed Mr. Waters's offer of specialist training to add to officers' expertise in the area of child pornography.

"The BPS has a number of officers already trained from accredited sources in this field," he said.

"The investigation of all Child Abuse offences including Child Pornography is led by our Child Victims Unit, a section within the Serious and Organised Crime Division. The nature of the threat requires ongoing training of staff, in which we are engaged. Expert assistance when relevant is always welcome."

The Police Service was yesterday unable to provide figures on Internet paedophiles in Bermuda, but said the Criminal Code Amendment Act would now apply.

"This is new legislation and no prosecution has been taken yet," said the spokesman.