When the Online Safety Act comes into force in the U.K. on July 25, adult websites will have to introduce age verification and age estimation checks to prevent under-18s from watching pornography. These checks will use different kinds of technology to work.
Tougher age-verifications measures are coming to adult websites in the U.K.
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The British regulator, Ofcom, recently published research which says that 8%, that鈥檚 one in 12, of eight to 14-year-olds in the U.K. visited a pornography site in one month with 19% of boys aged 13 and 14 (almost one in five) visiting the sites. Around 11% of girls the same age visited pornography sites in one month.
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So, the new mechanisms to check that you鈥檙e as old as you say you are will include credit card checks, facial age estimation or open banking technology. If all that sounds rather, well, compromising, 鈥渁s part of the new rules, platforms must also ensure age verification measures don’t exclude adults from accessing legal content or compromise their privacy,鈥 reports Sky News.
Recently, Pornhub withdrew from France rather than apply strict laws there, but it, and 12 other adult sites have confirmed to Ofcom that they will introduce the checks in time for the deadline in July.
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鈥淥fcom has already listed seven methods that porn providers could use. Ultimately, which one they opt for is their decision, not Ofcom’s, but their chosen method must be 鈥榟ighly effective鈥 at correctly determining if a user is under 18. Ofcom’s seven suggested strategies are photo-ID matching, facial age estimation, mobile-network operator (MNO) age checks, credit card checks, email-based age estimation, digital identity services and open banking,鈥 the Daily Mail has reported.
Open banking accesses the data a bank has on record for a customer regarding their age, and photo-ID matching involves uploading a verified photo-ID document, such as a passport or driving licence.
Since you need to be at least 18 years old to have a credit card in the U.K., a credit-card check is also considered highly effective.
鈥淔acial age estimate works by analysing the features of a user’s face from a photo to work out their age, while MNO age checks involve mobile-network operators applying age-restriction filters themselves,鈥 the Daily Mail adds.
The conundrum is how much users will trust an adult site with images of their face or passport, or whether they will want their bank confirm they are over 18.
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