UK government postpones age check for internet porn

The introduction of age checks for internet porn, which the British government intended to introduce in April, has been postponed until the end of the year. Until now, little information was available on the operation of the control.

Wired writes that the announcement of the postponement was hidden in a press release about investments in 5G. It states that age checks are expected to be enforceable at the end of the year. In the release, the Department for Digital Affairs, Culture, Media and Sport said the age verification regulator, the British Board of Film Classification, will launch a consultation on draft guidelines at the end of this month.

“Once these guidelines have been discussed publicly, they will be approved by parliament. There will then be a period of three months before they come into effect,” the ministry said. Wired reports that before the announcement of the postponement, very little information was available about how age verification would work. MindGeek, the parent company of PornHub, RedTube, YouPorn and Playboy TV, is working on a system called AgeID. That also wants to make it available for free to independent porn producers in the UK, while other companies will have to pay.

The company tells Wired that it is impossible to complete AgeID without details and requirements from the British government. MindGeek just said that it is clear that every porn website will have to create a non-pornographic page, on which visitors from the UK have to fill in their details. These are then checked via the AgeID API.

The law on controls was introduced in 2016 and is called the Digital Economy Bill. In the UK there has been an internet filter for, among other things, pornographic material for some time. Two major British providers started making porn sites inaccessible by default in 2013. Users can adjust this setting.