UK To Introduce Online Age Checks To Anyone Accessing Pornography

The UK is set to introduce strict age-checks for those visiting pornography sites from July, to prevent under 18s from accessing explicit material.

From the 15th July, pornography sites will have to verify the ages of UK visitors, or face being blocked by internet service providers.

However, the new law has been criticised by some who claim teens could find easy ways to bypass the restriction or find porn-hosting platforms that are not covered by the law.

For example, social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit and Imgur won't have to implement the age restrictions because they don't fall under the category where a third or more of the site or app's content must be pornographic for the age restriction to apply.

Sites that host pornography but do so without charging a fee or making money from adverts or otherwise, will also not be affected.

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It will also still be legal to use virtual private networks (VPNs), which make a UK-based computer appear to be based elsewhere, to evade the age checks.

Authorities have acknowledged that the age checks are not necessarily a solution, however they do make it less likely for children to stumble across unsuitable material online.

Minister for Digital, Margot James said: "The introduction of mandatory age-verification is a world-first, and we've taken the time to balance privacy concerns with the need to protect children from inappropriate content.

"We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online, and these new laws will help us achieve this."

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Initial plans proposed that pornographic services that refused to carry out the required age checks would face being fined up to £250,000. However, this won't be enforced because ministers think threatening to block defiant sites will be sufficient punishment and chasing overseas-based companies for payment could prove difficult.

A spokesperson for the Department of Digital Culture, Media and Sport told the BBC: "We know that pornography is available on some social media platforms and we expect those platforms to do a lot more to create a safer environment for children.

"If we do not see action then we do not rule out legislating in the future to force companies to take responsibility for protecting vulnerable users from the potentially harmful content that they host."

Topics: Life News, Real, Sex & Relationships

Emma Rosemurgey

Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Junior Journalist at Tyla. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining the team in 2017. Contact her on [email protected]

@emmarosemurgey