Plan to force age checks for porn sites shelved, Government announces

Plans to force porn sites to use age checks have been dropped by the Government, the Culture Secretary has announced.

Nicky Morgan said the initiative, which had been due to come into force in August, was being delayed indefinitely and would now form part of the forthcoming online harms legislation.

However, she hinted that a future regime could close a loophole that saw social media companies exempt from  having effective age checks of pornographic material was found on their sites.

The move also means that a future age verification regime could eventually be enforced by a new online regulator, which is expected to have far more stringent sanctions than the previous age verification regime.

Yet, news of a further delay prompted anger from children’s charities who said the measure would mean that children would continue to be exposed to graphic and explicit content online.

In a written statement, Mrs Morgan said: “This course of action will give the regulator discretion on the most effective means for companies to meet their duty of care. As currently drafted, the Digital Economy Act does not cover social media platform

“Adult content is too easily accessed online and more needs to be done to protect children from harm. We want to deliver the most comprehensive approach to keeping children safe online and recognised in the Online Harms White Paper the role that technology can play in keeping all users, particularly children, safe.”

The age verification scheme was originally passed as part of the Digital Economies Act in 2017 and was initially meant to come into force in early 2018.

The regime would have seen porn companies forced to adopt software to block access until visitors proved they are over 18. The software would have had to have been approved by the  British Board of Film Classification, which was due to be armed with powers to block UK access to sites that did not comply.

Yet the scheme was beset by numerous of delays, the latest coming this summer when the Government said it was postponing the August launch because an administrative oversight meant it had not observed a statutory notice period with the EU.

The Culture Secretary’s announcement Wednesday means the age verification scheme will now be part of the forthcoming Online Harms bill, a draft of which is expected to be published later next year.

The bill will set out a new legal duty of care for all tech companies to protect their users, which will be enforced by a new regulator.

The move means that pornography companies could face far tougher sanctions for failing to implement age checks, as the new regulator is expected to have powers to levy large fines and potentially jail for senior executives, as well as blocking access to sites.

The original regime also faced criticism for not including social media companies, some of which do not explicitly ban pornographic content in their rules. Mrs Morgan's statement suggested that this could be revisited in the draft bill.

However, the new duty of care regulator is not expected to be up and running until around 2022 or 2023.

John Carr, Secretary of the Coalition of Children's Charities for Internet Safety, said: "(Age verification) companies have been set up, they have invested millions of pounds, they are ready to go now. The porn industry has done likewise, they are ready to go now.

"What possible justification can there be to say 'let’s review this in the context of the online harms white paper'? It could be two or three years before anything comes out the other end, meanwhile six and seven-year-olds are seeing hardcore pornography. It is absolutely shocking."