The United Kingdom last year passed a law that would require all porn sites to put age verification technology in place, supposedly to stop underage web surfers from accessing adult material online. But the British government has yet to put the nw law into effect, and now a new activist group says that they plan to stop the law altogether, with a court challenge, according to a report by the U.K. tech news site The Register.
The new law requires users not only to vouch for their own age, but to upload documentation to prove that they are the ages they say they are. The government plans to farm out the task of collecting and storing that information to private technology companies.
As AVN.com reported, the new law—part of the U.K.’s 2017 Digital Economy Act—would require porn fans to upload personal information to porn sites, which would be responsible for storing that sensitive info, where it would be vulnerable to hackers or other misuse. Critics say that the new law could even pose a national security risk if hackers from a hostile foreign government gained access to the porn preferences and proclivities of government and military officials.
The new activist group, ResistAV, was founded by feminist porn director Pandora Blake and lawyer Myles Jackman, who specializes in obscenity law.
"We will send a direct message to Government that violating the citizen's sexual privacy is unforgivable,” Jackman told the Register.
"Without specific privacy controls embedded in the legislation, there is a very real risk of U.K. adults' porn habits being outed,” Blak added. “The government's ill-conceived age verification régime puts up to 25 million U.K. adults at risk.”
The new age-verification requirements were scheduled to take effect in the spring of this year, but the U.K. government put the new law on hold while they try to figure out the best way to implement the rules, according to the Register.
Blake has produced—and starred in—a pretty much safe-for-work video explaining the new law and its hazards, “Curtains for Privacy,” which can be viewed online at this link.
The group has also started a crowdfunding page on the site CrowdJustice, which as of late Tuesday had raised £1,690 ($2,199) of its £10,000 ($13,000) goal.
Photo By Nikowsk / Wikimedia Commons
