HomeInsightsGovernment publishes response to consultation on Child Safety Online: Age Verification for Pornography.

In the consultation, the Government stated that its preferred approach to keeping children safe online is to establish a new law requiring age verification controls for online pornography.  Following consideration of the consultation responses, this remains the Government’s intention.

To underpin this, the Government says that it will establish a new regulatory framework and ensure a proportionate approach by enabling the regulator to act in a “sufficiently flexible and targeted way”.

The responses to the consultation showed that, overall, there was a roughly even split between those supporting age verification (44%) and those not in favour (48%).  Responses from individuals made up the vast majority of those that were submitted via the Government’s online questionnaire (94%).  Over half of the individuals were men, the majority of whom were between 18 and 34 years old.

Crucially, however, many of key organisations, including children’s charities, support and advice groups, the BBFC, internet service providers, and payment service firms and credit card companies, indicated their support for the proposals, and the overriding policy goal of protecting children online.

Notably, pornography providers who responded to the consultation also stated their support for the protection of children online, and (with caveats) the introduction of age verification controls to protect children from content that is not appropriate for them.

Arguments were made over the difficulties of enforcement, particularly taking action against non-UK companies.  Others raised the potential for determined porn users, young or old, to circumnavigate any controls put in place.  Other respondents cited freedom of speech arguments over denying or restricting access to pornographic content that would be legal for adults to view.  Several individual respondents also raised concerns over any intervention by the Government.

The Government is quite clear, however, that “doing nothing in this area is not an option we are prepared to consider”.  Given that children are leading increasingly connected lives and using the internet as their primary source of entertainment and information, it is “absolutely right that we should continue to consider whether their experiences online are positive, and if not, what steps we should all be taking to better protect them”.

The Government says that it will now take the following next steps:

  • bring forward legislation, in the Digital Economy Bill (see item above) to establish a new law requiring age verification for commercial pornographic websites and applications containing still and moving images, and a new regulatory framework to underpin it;
  • continue to work with payments firms and ancillary companies to ensure that the business models and profits of companies that do not comply with the new regulations can be undermined;
  • maintain ongoing engagement with pornography providers, age verification providers, and other parts of the industry, to ensure that the regulatory framework is targeted and proportionate, to achieve maximum impact and to enable compliance; and
  • continue to work on broader internet safety issues, including work led by the UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS), and raising awareness and resilience.

To access the Government’s response, click here.

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