UK Gov't Launches Public Consultation On Porn-Site Age Checks (bbc.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes with news from the BBC that the UK government has launched a publc consultation regarding plans to mandate age checks on pornographic websites. According to the article, The proposals follow a Conservative Party manifesto commitment that "all sites containing pornographic material" must check that users are over 18. Internet providers, charities, academics and others will be asked to contribute to the consultation. ... In the consultation document, the government proposes that the checks should apply to content that would receive — if formally classified — an 18 or R18 rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). "We are keen to hear from parents, schools, child protection experts, the pornography industry, internet service providers and online platforms that provide access to pornographic content," the consultation document explained. As part of the plans, the government intends to establish a new regulatory framework to enforce compliance with any rules that are made law.

Comments

Keen to hear?

[houstonbofh]

How about this... Watch your own damn kids and quit trying to child proof my world.

Re:Keen to hear?

[wvmarle]

Disagree. A parent can't always hover over their children - heck, a parent shouldn't. I'm happy my 9-yo is finally able to get home from school by himself (one stop on the train and a 15-minute walk), very good for his self-confidence. What he's doing out there exactly, I can't tell, but I do trust him to not start smoking, drinking, etc, and to otherwise stay out of trouble.

There are plenty of other places where age checks are in place, such as bars, amusement centres (for playing computer games), casinos, liquor shops, etc. Those checks are done usually by someone sitting at the door and looking at your face, and asking for proof of age if you look too young. Sure, it's imperfect, but it does put a bit of a brake on under age drinking without parental knowledge and other stuff.

Internet should be similar, but the big problem is how those age checks could possibly be done without serious privacy invasion. The real-life checks are highly anonymous. You look too young, you're out. You look old enough, you're in. You think you're old enough but look too young, show an ID, and you're in - where the ID is not copied or recorded or so. It doesn't work like that online. Everyone can lie about their age (click the "I'm over 18 and it's legal to watch this crap in my neck of the woods" button) when it's totally anonymous. So probably a login of sorts is required, and even so there is no way to check one's age without extensive personal details and cross checking them with official government records - and even so, how can you see whether those personal details belong to the person providing them?

Re:Keen to hear?

[Mashiki]

If it's happening in your home, you're responsible. Those places such as "bars, amusement centres, casino's, liquor shops" are all the place of someone else, and they are responsible.

In other words, you're happy to let the government do your job.

Re:Keen to hear?

[bickerdyke]

A porn site is not his home.

The internet would be a much safer place if people simply would see it as "outdoor". As with the real outdoor, most of it is safe and harmless, a good portion even friendly and welcoming and everyone (mor or less) accepts liquor stores and strip clubs and at least acknowledges the existence of drug dealers, fraudsters and other crime. And everyone is glad, there is a sewer somewhere outside, though they never would visit it (or its internet pendant 4chan)

But at home in your desk chair, everyone feels safe and lets all guard down. "A talking moose wants my credit card number? Sounds legit!"

Re:Keen to hear?

[serviscope_minor]

So, instead, you suggest me to become a helicopter parent and never leave the kid out of sight until they turn 18 or so?

No, he's suggesting you do your job as a parent. And that job is to world-proof the child, not child-proof the world.

Oh also: your kid is going to get access to porn no matter what you or the government tries to do. Back in ye olde days of yore when posh kids had 64k ISDN lines and CD writers and hardly anyone else had internet access, one enterprising kid in my school made a decent amount of cash selling CD-Rs full of porn for a fiver a pop.

And guess what? It's got easier since then to access porn. First the filtering will never be 100% effective. Second there'll be kids in the school with unfiltered connections because unlike back then connections aren't expensive. Third, exchanging data is now free and doesn't require a high capital outlay (a CDRW drive circa 1997 wasn't cheap) and quite expensive disposable media (as CD-Rs were then). And that's ignoring the fact that back then (and before), the local dodgy corner shops that would happily sell schoolboys porn mags was part of the tribal knowledge of the school.

IOW your kid's going to get access to porn when you're not looking no matter what you or David Cameron does. There is literally nothing you could have done to prevent it 20 years ago, and there sure as hell is nothing you can do to prevent it now.

So, how about instead of advocating something expensive, intrusive and ineffective (see above), you do your perental duty and educate your kid so that he can cope and doesn't get unpleasantly distorted ideas and then accept the inevitable and that he's going to turn into a randy adolescent who will beat off over more or less anything at the drop of a hat (just as you were) and there's fuck all you can do to stop it.

Old enough

[Boronx]

My experience is that those who are interested in looking at porn are old enough to look at it.

What part of...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The internet is everywhere" do these people not understand? How are you going to get a provider of content in another country to assent to this?

So Many Problems

[mentil]

Wow let me list the ways age verification is a bad idea:

*Loss of anonymity for visitors. Someone will be collecting data on what actual people are visiting what actual sites. Yes, if you pay for site access with a credit/debit card you're giving up your (pseudo)anonymity, but payment with bitcoin/burner cards is possible, as well as access to free sites. If the verification has to be done through a central authority, who wants to bet the govt. will have access to that list, and it will be a huge target for black hats.

*Porn website companies based outside of the UK don't have to bother complying with this law. I imagine that's the vast majority, and the few that are in the UK will quickly move shop.

*Sites will likely use IP geofencing to only ask UK visitors for verification. A VPN or proxy would get around this; I imagine many Britons already use VPNs to access Netflix USA, or the BBC viewer when on vacation.

*Overbroad 'verification' definition will lead to "click here if you're over 18" clickthroughs which are pointless (unless the pages capture visitors who don't have a cookie set, then they might catch accidental/blind link clicks).

*Attempting to DNS block sites that don't comply with the UK law is doomed to fail. Attempting to get Google et al, and Chillingeffects, to redact mention of these sites, is futile as they will miss other search engines.

*18 is the age of majority in the UK, but too high of a requirement. Why not set it to be the same as the age of consent (16 there)? Watching porn is more akin to having sex than signing a legal contract (insert witty retort here).

*How is compliance judged? The vague "would receive an R-18 classification if it were reviewed" allows the simple excuse: "PROVE that it would receive an R-18 classification" for an accused. One could simply say that in their opinion, it wouldn't have received such a classification, and assuming the material is unclassified, it would be difficult to prove it would unless the rules of classification are concrete and publicly-known (unlike the MPAA's classification rules).

*There is some evidence that access to porn reduces the incidence of rape. This really ought to be the end of the discussion, although it needs more research before it can be considered incontrovertible. I consider it compelling enough that I think govt. shouldn't restrict access to porn. Surely there are some teens under 18 who commit rape, and allowing them to see porn may prevent some of it.

*Theoretically, if porn is 'bad information about sex', then the proper solution in a democracy should be to solve it via the marketplace of ideas: to outshout it with 'good information about sex'. If the elite are too sex-negative to think of any compelling 'good information about sex' maybe they should let the people figure it out.
Ya know, Invisible Hand theory :)

Priorities the Cameronian way

[Teun]

Poor Cameron, chased up by that troll Nigel Farage and UKIP to chance the greatest economic disaster (Brexit) the nation has faced in 50 years he has found a new priority.
They've already overplayed their hand at a mandatory opt-out porn filter at ISP level and now he wants to go one step up on this stupidity.

Anything will do for him to avoid the voter to see how he's only shrouding real issues by populist rhetoric.
Poor Albion.

Re:Priorities the Cameronian way

[Coisiche]

I did wonder why they were actually doing a consultation rather than just plunging headlong into introducing short-sighted, impractical and unworkable legislation like they usually do when trying to pander to their main support base.

Of course, if they don't like what the consultation suggests then it will probably be back to knee-jerk plan A.