The U.K. government has been trying to implement a method to block children (and many others) from accessing sexually explicit materials online since 2013—and now it's admitted that it won't be able to put that blocking in place, at least in the near future, in part because it's working on a more comprehensive internet regulatory scheme.
The most recent impediment to moving forward with the online censorhip was an administrative one. It seems that the program, which was part of the Digital Economy Act of 2017, had been set to launch on July 15, but on June 20, TechCrunch.com reported that "Digital Minister Jeremy Wright said the government failed to notify the European Commission of age verification standards it expects companies to meet—in line with EU law. Not having done so means it can’t legally introduce the policy at this stage."
TechCrunch is also reporting another reason for the delay is that the government had issued an Online Harms White Paper earlier this year, which sets out a host of other types of content the government wants to regulate, including material that would incite violence, violent content, encouraging suicide, general disinformation and cyber bullying, in addition to preventing children's access to sexual content.
"The government has concluded that this objective of coherence will be best achieved through our wider online harms proposals and, as a consequence, will not be commencing Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 concerning age verification for online pornography," said Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan in a statement released today. "The Digital Economy Act objectives will therefore be delivered through our proposed online harms regulatory regime. This course of action will give the regulator discretion on the most effective means for companies to meet their duty of care."
Labour’s Shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Tom Watson MP was more blunt: "Mistakes, mishaps and multiple delays have characterized this government’s attempts to introduce Age Verification. The government has now dropped the pretence and admitted it isn’t going to implement it after all. This whole process has been a shambles, and the government must declare how much public money has been spent on this failed policy."
Had the Digital EconomyAct requirements gone into effect, anyone wishing to view sexual content on the Web would have had to have their age verified by the government, either by obtaining a "porn pass" from various retail vendors, having their faces scanned so an AI program could guess their age, or having their identity confirmed by a third party verifier based on an uploaded photo ID. Mindgeek had been working on just such a verification system, but it has been controversial, with many groups concerned that that system could easily lead to identity theft and other, more political considerations.
"Experts suggested that the law could put government ministers and other high-profile figures at risk of blackmail if their embarrassing habits were observed by hackers," Sky News reported. "Figures released in 2018 revealed that there were roughly 160 attempts a day to access blocked pornographic websites within parliament the year before."
MindGeek disputes the charge that identities could be stolen through its AgeID system.
"AgeID is neither a website, nor does it verify age directly," noted AgeID Communications Director Michael Willis. "AgeID is a single-sign-on portal which provides users access to an independent third party age verification site and is fully in compliance with data protection laws.
"When a user registers an AgeID account using an email address and password, both are protected by a salted, one-way hash," he continued. "A user is then prompted to pick a method by which to confirm their age. Regardless of their choice, they will be directed out of the AgeID platform and onto a third party website. Once verification is complete, the user is redirected back to AgeID and the third party provides either a pass or fail notification.
"AgeID does not know the identity or date of birth of its users; all it knows is whether a hashed account is over 18 or not. AgeID is unable to store any personal data such as name, address, phone number, date of birth, as it does not have access to information input into the third party platform users utilize for the age verification process. Since such data is not collected by AgeID, it cannot be leaked, marketed to, or used in any way. This has been independently assessed and confirmed by cyber security firm, NCC Group."
Sky News also contacted feminist pornographer Pandora/Blake as well as anti-censorship attorney Myles Jackman, who both told the news service that "the plans would harm small businesses and curtail the freedom of expression by allowing multinational pornography giants to monopolise the industry."
Sky News went on to note that MindGeek owns several of the most popular porn sites.
"We've been told by MindGeek that 20 to 25 million adult users will sign up to age verification by their estimation in the first month that age verification comes online," Jackman said. "And as a consequence of that, on the basis that they do not have the greatest history of data security... there's a high probability that those people are risking putting their private sexual proclivities in the public domain."
A more in-depth look at the history of the UK's attempts at censoring adult content by someone who's been intimately involved in the fight may be found here.
