The United Kingdom is strengthening the rules on how people access pornography online by requiring websites to verify their users’ ages. The bill was announced on Tuesday by the UK government, which described it as a “world-leading initiative” aimed at preventing youngsters from accessing pornography online. They claim that pornography websites will have to implement “robust checks” to ensure that their users are at least 18 years old. That means it’s unlikely to be a simple “I’m over 18” checkbox, but instead will rely on secure age verification technologies, such as a credit card or a third-party service, to check their age against government records.
If websites do not implement age limits, the media regulator Ofcom has the right to punish them up to 10% of their annual global turnover and to prohibit them from being accessed in the UK. “It is just too easy for kids to get pornography on the internet.” “Parents ought to know that their children are protected online from seeing things that no child should see,” said Chris Philp, the UK’s Digital Minister.
For numerous years, the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom has sought to impose similar legislation. The administration planned to have the plan in place by April 2018 after sneaking it in under the Digital Economy Act of 2017, but it has run into multiple roadblocks and delays. Some critics have previously expressed concerns about the ideas’ ethical and cybersecurity implications. The necessity for a reliable age-verification system would almost certainly necessitate the creation of a data bank containing vast amounts of sensitive information about people’s personal lives.
In the event of a data breach, hackers might have access to the personal information, sexual preferences, and credit card information of everybody in the UK who has ever seen porn. Many people also claimed that the proposal would be difficult to implement.
When the plan first gained media attention in 2019, Myles Jackman, one of the UK’s leading obscenity and pornography lawyers, told IFLScience, “They’re suggesting GDPR [current UK data protection laws] will be sufficient, but I personally argue the type of data being held is much more sensitive, and this won’t carry enough weight.”
“This is untenable in practice,” Jackman continued. “It’s only to keep younger children safe,” he added. “The child protection imperative is critical, but I don’t believe it will adequately protect children from the most significant threats.” It’s almost impossible to stop a motivated adolescent from browsing at these resources.”
