You might be familiar with the age verification procedure that works when you visit a porn site. Usually the site asks if you are 18, and then if you click yes, you’re good to go. This sort of age verification makes sense, even if it’s not very useful–but it’s something that’s required by porn sites. In the UK, however, the government wants to take it a step forward by implementing a system that requires actual ID and age verification. Are you surprised to see another Big Brother law like this in the UK? How they’ll create this system is anyone’s guess, but the new system is reported to be deployed in April of 2018.
This new law is called the Digital Economy Law which mandates age verification on pornography websites. Porn sites will be forced to deploy a new age verification system in order to prevent youths from accessing the internet. However, there are also other underlying goals that the government doesn’t want to admit. This new law can set a precedent for how the internet is handled and controlled in the future. Sure for now, porn can be restricted by ID verification–but at what point will government critiques, education websites, and other non conservative forms of content be blocked like it is in China? Additionally, by logging in and watching porn and providing your ID, you are basically sending your usage data to the UK government saying that you watch porn under your name. Anonymous? What ever happened to privacy online?
Critics think that the timeline for the new system is very unrealistic. This is because of the technicalities and scope the system would require. There have been thoughts that the new system will require users to input credit card numbers or assigned “ID numbers” to access porn content but even these requirements would require a massive regulatory body that simply doesn’t exist. A system like this would also cause tremendous ethical problems for users.
Take for example, if there was some sort of notification system anytime a user accessed a porn site through the ID number, or if there was some sort of log. I’d imagine the missus wouldn’t be too happy finding her hubby entering his credit card on the net. Already, users in the UK have to call their ISP to let them know to turn off the adult filter–an embarrassing and privacy violation prospect in and of itself.
Dr. Victoria Nash, a member of the team studying the upcoming regulation, explains the issue.
“The idea you can get a regulatory body up and running in that timeframe seems extraordinary to me. And while I don’t have a problem with asking these companies to act responsibly, I don’t see it as a solution to stopping minors seeing pornography.”
While the public won’t know till later on how this regulation will come into effect or how it will even work, we don’t suspect that the system and the millions of dollars invested into the program will be a very effective use of tax dollars. The reason being that these systems will undoubtedly be bypassed with tools like TorGuard VPN and proxy servers that allow UK users to access all forms of content, porn or otherwise, in the UK.
