UK brings in world's first 'porn ban' checks on adult site users' ages

New online porn controls designed to stop children seeing adult content online are not a ‘silver bullet' and will not always work, the watchdog that will police it admitted today.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) said that despite a new law to require age checks to block access to those under 18 ‘determined teenagers will find ways to access pornography'.

Age restrictions on viewing adult videos and images, the first in the world, will come into effect on July 15, Digital Minister Margot James said.

In a question and answer section on the website set up in response to the new law the BBFC says that it will ‘primarily' target adult websites with high volumes of traffic but be partly reliant on whistleblowers to tell it about smaller sites breaking the law.

It admitted that the new law, part of the Digital Economy Act 2017, is mainly aimed at children who accidentally ‘stumble across pornography on commercial pornographic websites'.

If you adored this article therefore you would like to acquire more info about sex học sinh thủ dâm generously visit our web-site. The move, which applied to sites whose content is more than a third pornographic, has been designed to cut the number of children who are freely able to access extreme material on the internet.  

But it has been criticised by freedom campaigners and others who fear that making people give personal details leaves them open to fraud and blackmail.

Under the new law companies running porn websites will have make users prove they are over 18, or face punishments including being blocked in the UK, being barred from receiving electronic payments or being delisted from search engines.

This means that punters will have to use one of several ways of proving their age, including picking up a 'porn pas' from the local newsagent.

One age verification system, AgeID, last year launched the PortesCard. It is due to  be available from 'selected high street retailers and any of the UK's 29,000 PayPoint outlets', the firm said, costing £4.99 for a single device and £8.99 for more than one. 

People buying it would have to show age ID in the shop but not online.

Various apps and websites are available to prove your age online but they require you to enter personal information which is then stored.

They have insisted their systems are secure and all information is anonymised. 

The Government is targeting websites and apps that offer pornography on a 'commercial basis', which includes any pornographic material made available free of charge where a person making it available 'receives a payment, reward or other benefit in connection with making it available on the internet'.

However social media and search engines are unaffected.




Under the current scheme adult websites will have to provide their own verification software, which will then have to meet standards and checks carried out by the British Board of Film Classification (file image posed by models) 





The BBFC presented an honest appraisal of the new rule's effectiveness on its new age verification website following today's announcement





The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport mad the announcement this morning that from July 15 people wanting to watch online porn in the UK would have to prove their age