After several delays, the law about the age verification it has been completed and will come into effect during April. The legislation is implemented on the basis of the government’s plan to make the United Kingdom the safest place to have access to the Internet.
Specifically, the law is addressed to all the websites of which the largest content is pornographic in order to verify that visitors are over 18 years old. If they choose not to verify, then the government has the right to exclude specific websites and shut down the respective companies they represent. According to the law, government officials believe that the law will remove young people from sites with inappropriate content such as pornography. On the other hand, experts and government commission have another opinion. They support that there many ways to overcome age restrictions and conclude that it “is not guaranteed to succeed.”
“There are various proposals for obtaining your ‘porn license’,” Neil Brown, the MD told Sky News. “Some involve handing over details online, some may entail installing software on your phone or computer, and others require you to go into a store and prove your age (like buying alcohol). A credit card alone is unlikely to be sufficient.”
In addition to this, it is not clear if the age can be verified without the determination of a user’s identity, which means that if it can’t, there is a serious problem. If websites with pornographic content have databases of users who are aged verified then they will be hacked by people with political motives in order to gain the advantage of their opponents. Specifically, during 2017, approximately 160 access requests to blocked porn websites were made on parliament’s internet network every day.
