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UK: Porn sites to provide reliable age verification in future

Until now, minors have been able to access media with pornographic content on the Internet without any problems. For age verification, only simple buttons are used to confirm that the user is of age. This is now set to change in the UK.

Youth protectors have been heard

Children are coming into contact with the Internet and its content at an increasingly early age. In the process, the urge to discover ensures that they quickly end up on sites that are actually reserved for adults. According to youth protection experts, this development is particularly alarming in the area of pornography. After all, such videos are said to have a bad influence on children. They are particularly concerned about content with violent pornographic content.

Politicians in the UK seem to have listened to the experts and are now introducing a new law. Soon, people in the UK will no longer have to confirm their age by simply clicking a button. Instead, people will have to show identification to prove that they are of age. Possible solutions are currently being discussed between the government and the portal operators. The latter seem to be cooperating.

Previous approach ineffective

This is not the first attempt by British politicians to provide more online protection for minors. Already a few years ago, they made sure that Internet providers had to provide two different types of Internet access. One restricted and one unrestricted. The restricted access blocked all registered websites that offered content harmful to minors or pornographic content. However, this step did not really prove to be effective. A mere glance at the numbers makes it clear how big the problem is. Statistical surveys revealed that almost 1.4 million children and young people in the UK accessed pornographic content every month in 2015. A large proportion of the children and young people stated that they had not intentionally accessed the sites.

Privacy as a knockout criterion

The idea of making more effective age verification mandatory has been around for some time. But in 2019, the UK government decided against it. The reason it gave was that by verifying identity data, users’ personal data would also be at risk, as it were. Identity theft and other serious consequences could accompany it. Over time, however, the government was increasingly rebuked for its decision.

Youth protectors in particular argue that the protection of minors is so important that there is no way around a reliable age check. The influence of misogynistic and even violent pornographic content, to which children and young people have easy access, is too negative. This can be problematic for society as a whole, because its consumption creates a distorted image of sexuality. As the pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson has recently increased massively, he has now agreed. The so-called “Online Safety Bill” is to receive a corresponding amendment as early as next year.

Safe age verification

In order to protect users’ data as much as possible, secure verification options are already being put forward.

“The technology is much better today and there are no more concerns about user privacy”

Rachel De Souza, the U.K.’s youth protection commissioner, told The Sunday Times. This would allow third-party providers to be brought in to take care of age verification, she said. These would delete the data immediately after verification. In the meantime, however, there are also possibilities that do not require any personal data at all. For example, an AI is supposed to be able to determine whether a person is of age or under age by means of voice verification. So effective methods seem to exist. And the porn portals also seem to be cooperating. So De Souza in her statement further said that one was in a lively exchange with the operators.

What is the situation in Germany?

In Germany, by the way, there has been a compulsion for age verification on relevant portals for quite some time. However, this has not proved to be particularly effective. For example, websites with pornographic content only have to indicate that access is only permitted to persons over the age of 18. To confirm one’s age, it has so far been sufficient to simply press the button. We are curious to see whether the British can find an effective, but data-safe way to ensure more protection for minors.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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Until now, minors have been able to access media with pornographic content on the Internet without any problems. For age verification, only simple buttons are used to confirm that the user is of age. This is now set to change in the UK. Youth protectors have been heard Children are coming into contact with the … (Weiterlesen...)

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