A scheme proposed by the UK porn industry would see adult sites verifying visitors’ identity with organisations such as banks, credit reference agencies or even the NHS.
It comes ahead of an expected new law demanding age checks for the online porn industry and threatening a block on any sites which don’t comply. It is a key Conservative pledge and has widespread support. But critics say the plans are a privacy nightmare. Some warn they are a step towards Chinese-style internet restrictions.
“This is cutting-edge censorship,” said Myles Jackman, a lawyer specialising in obscenity law. “We are now becoming the world leaders in censorship. And we are being watched very closely from abroad.”
The adult industry is trying to anticipate a new law with a national standard for age checks. The Digital Policy Alliance, which acts for online companies, suggests using information “already on file across central and local government … and/or the private sector”.
“Nobody in the UK wants a centralised identity database,” said Dr Rachel O’Connell, an online child safety expert advising the DPA. “The way around that is that Royal Mail knows who you are, your mobile operator knows who you are.”
Adult websites would offer visitors a choice of identity providers – from Vodafone to the Department for Work and Pensions – to vouch for their age, O’Connell said. The user would sign in to the provider with a username and password, and a check would be run against the data it holds.
To boost privacy, checks would pass through an “anonymising hub”. This strips identifying information in both directions of the request. In theory, the provider never knows the reasons for the checks, and the site never knows users’ true identities, just that they are over 18.
British-based sites have had to make stringent age checks since 2010, using credit cards, the electoral roll and credit reference agencies. “It’s a quite intrusive means of identifying age,” said Chris Ratcliff, chief executive of Portland TV, which runs Television X. Many customers simply go elsewhere, he said. He sees the new scheme as an improvement.
But critics warn against any system linking use of pornography websites to identity. Jerry Barnett, a free-speech campaigner and author of the Sex & Censorship blog, said any such system must make detailed records of web-browsing history.
“And we know that privacy in such cases is often breached by accident, by hackers, or secretly by the police and intelligence services,” Barnett said. “This is the state, yet again, intervening in people’s private lives for no reason other than good old British prurience and control-freakery.”
The Conservatives made age verification for online pornography a key part of their election pitch. Checks would “stop children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online,” the Tory manifesto vowed. “Websites that do not put them in place will be blocked,” Sajid Javid, then culture secretary, added in an election campaign Facebook post.
The law will be an easy win for the new government, even with a slim majority. Few politicians would oppose child protection. Chris Bryant, Labour’s culture spokesman, has already accused the Tories of being slow to act.
Britain’s pornography industry has a lot to gain from the government’s plans, critics point out. Tough regulation and stiff competition from abroad have taken their toll on the industry. If overseas sites were blocked it would be boom time for the UK porn industry.
But foreign web companies are beginning to pay attention, too. Luxembourg-based Mindgeek, which controls the market-leading Pornhub network, joined the DPA’s discussions a fortnight ago. Mindgeek claims as much as 60%-70% of Britain’s audience for streaming pornography, Ratcliff said.
“The important thing now is that it’s going to be a level playing field,” Ratcliff said. “Quite how these foreign websites are going to be brought to task, and how quickly they are going to bring it in, I don’t know.”
Read the full article here. What are your views on the proposed changes? Comments below.
