Porn Websites in UK Ordered To Introduce Age Checks From Next Year (bbc.com)

Reader dryriver shares an article: A nine-month countdown to the introduction of compulsory age checks on online pornography seen from the UK has begun. The April 2018 goal to protect under-18s was revealed as digital minister Matt Hancock signed the commencement order for the Digital Economy Act, which introduces the requirement. But details as to how the scheme will work have yet to be finalised. Experts who advised ministers said the targeted date seemed "unrealistic". The act also sets out other new laws including punishing the use of bots to snatch up scores of concert tickets, and mandating the provision of subtitles on catch-up TV. The age-check requirement applies to any website or other online platform that provides pornography "on a commercial basis" to people in the UK. It allows a regulator to fine any business that refuses to comply and to ask third-party payment services to withdraw support. The watchdog will also be able to force internet providers to block access to non-compliant services.

Comments

This just in...

[Baron_Yam]

Visits to foreign-hosted porn sites from the UK mysteriously skyrocket after 2018/04. VPN services experience a slight bump as well.

Clueless

[Harold Halloway]

And once again, the Tories fail to get that the Internet does in fact extend beyond the borders of the United Kingdom.

In other words, good luck with getting XHamster to implement an age check.

Re:Clueless

[gnick]

Unless this is being ran through government records and you have to verify your identity in some fashion...

One proposal is to require credit card information. Apparently, in the U.K. a credit card indicates 18+. This, of course, presents some concerns.

Re:Clueless

[gweihir]

Up next: UK Internet to be separated from the "pool of filth" that the worldwide Internet is. To be replaced by "clean, healthy and non-degenerate UK contents". Also, UK borders to be closed in both direction and to be secured by mine-fields and auto-guns (know-how comes from former GDR experts) to protect UK people from wandering into dangerous rest-of-the world areas.

Re:Clueless

[DontBeAMoran]

In other words, good luck with getting XHamster to implement an age check.

And good luck with getting e621.net to implement that as well.

Uh? Oh, a... friend told me about it.

Re: Clueless

[Falos]

Only if they have to.

They don't give a flying fuck about the UK's moral theater.

In fact, they may not give a fuck about the law. "Even if *IF* you tell EVERY one of your ISPs to block us, your country is like 1.5% of our revenue."

With the added bonus

[computational super]

Of course, with these age checks, the sites themselves (and the government) will have a permanent, verifiable record of what kind of things you look at online. Which, as we know from the history of the surveillance state, almost always ends up "leaked" when it has the potential to embarrass somebody...

Re:With the added bonus

[John.Banister]

You'd think that a digital ID service could provide a hash to enter into age check sites that would allow the site to confirm the age but not the identity. I bet e-Estonia could do something like that.

Re:With the added bonus

[Xest]

To be fair last time we had a hardline fundamentalist Christian like Theresa May able to do shit like this called Jacqui Smith it was her husband's porn habits that got leaked.

It was quite funny watching her fall to her husband's secret porn viewing habits which he paid for using her parliamentary expenses as she waged a crusade against porn.

If she had any sense she'd have claimed it as research into ease of access, but thankfully like most hardline religious zealots she was astoundingly dumb, though for whatever reason the BBC seems to randomly help her with her crusade by giving her air time about the topic now and then.

But really this is the type of shit we're going to get more of thanks to Brexit - many leading Brexiteers are also hardline fundamentalist Christians like May, and without the European Courts to protect us against their particularly vile brand of fascism it'll be a free ride for them on issues like this. That's why the Rees-Moggs of the world and such are so desperate to prevent May falling and to avoid any kind of compromise.

Slipper slope

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

The slippery slope of censorship and surveillance in the UK is continuing at a disturbingly predictable path. The ISP level blocking mechanisms are already implemented and in production. Now it's just a matter of adding more sites, and control more of what citizens are allow to watch. Theresa May wants government back-doors in social network and communication apps. Not revealing your encryption key and password can land you in jail for years.

First they filtered child molestation.
Then they came for the pirate sites.
Then they blocked communication of terrorists.
Then it was any mature content.

Next? Opposing political opinions? Full ban on naked body images of any kind? All encrypted communication blocked and illegal without a back-door?

Conspiracy

[interkin3tic]

Why do I get the feeling this is funded by British "newspapers" like The Sun and others that have titties inside?

Either to increase their sales or just they're getting bored of constantly trying to convince the UK to abandon it's healthcare system and be more like the health utopia that is the US.

Re:Conspiracy

[interkin3tic]

Probably because you're (I'm assuming) an American for whom titties in a newspaper would be a national crisis.

Right on both, but I personally have no problem with it. It's the only part of those newspapers I agree with.

I mean I'm sure UK folk like a good pair of titties as much as the rest of us, but equating a single weekly topless photo with internet porn is.. a little silly.

I wasn't equating them, I'm just guessing that the Daily Mail's brains would say "Hey, we can increase sales by banning internet porn maybe?"

Re:What took the UK so long?

[sycodon]

Pornhub never asks me.

Maybe they just know me as a regular.

This means a great firewall of UK I presume?

[tomxor]

This kind of ignorant policy making is annoying because for it to actually work at all the following must be true:

Implement a global white list for all of the internet (AKA absolute censorship and 1x10^-9999999% of sites available)

Of course what they will actually do is approach it through legislation which will do about fuck all because UK !== internet... but a small piece of me wants them to attempt absolute censorship so the idiots in parliament can see first hand what a bunch of fucking pillocks they all are as they realise it would mean self destruction of the UK economy. Don't meddle with what you don't understand... oh wait that's basically the definition of politics, yes this shit makes me very cynical.

Re:And in other news

[mjwx]

Sales of US based VPN's to people in the UK double in a matter of weeks.

The US?

With their crazy laws, insane president and that extradition treaty... Hell no, I'll just use the same Norwegian end point I use to access torrent sites.

Our conservative government may be batshit insane but the US's makes our government look well and truly grounded in reality.