DUP MP Carla Lockhart welcomes age checks for online porn to protect children

The government says that pornography websites will be legally required to verify the age of users under new online safety rules.

Marking Safer Internet Day, yesterday, digital minister Chris Philp confirmed the draft Online Safety Bill is to be strengthened to require all sites which publish pornographic content to put “robust checks” in place to ensure users are 18 or over.

Sites could use secure age verification technology to confirm a user possesses a credit card and is therefore at least 18, or use a third-party service to confirm someone’s age against government data.

Ministers said that if sites fail to act, Ofcom, as the sector’s regulator, will be able to fine them up to 10% of their annual global turnover or block their site in the UK, while bosses of such sites could be held criminally liable if they fail to cooperate with Ofcom.

The Government has made the move in response to lobbying from MPs, including Mrs Lockhart, and from online safety campaigners.

Mrs Lockhart said: “The lack of any meaningful proposals around age verification for pornography sites was a great weakness in the original proposals for the Online Safety Bill brought forward by the Government.

“Over recent months I have spoken in the House highlighting the inadequacy of the Bill in this regard. Working with MPs of like mind and online safety campaigners, like CARE, we set about forcing the Government to move to protect children and young people from accessing damaging adult material on the web. Today’s announcement from the Government is a welcome response to this campaigning.

“The Bill will legislate that all platforms publishing pornographic content must put ‘robust checks’ in place to ensure users are 18 or over. Failure to do so could result in sites being banned from the web in the UK, or hefty fines for publishers.”

However, Yaniv Balmas of cybersecurity company at Salt Security, warned that porn sites may be able to identify previously anonymous users and that protecting this data will be their responsibility.

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