Using porn sites in the UK is about to become a lot less anonymous and a lot more difficult.
As of April, you’ll have to prove that you are old enough to watch porn on all sites if you’re using a UK IP address.
To be fair, most people wouldn’t disagree that under-18s shouldn’t be able to watch porn, but equally, you’d have to imagine that some people would be pretty damn annoyed that they’re going to have to provide their personal details to prove they’re of legal porn-watching age.
The rules were passed through the House of Commons on Monday – see, they do some stuff that isn’t just arguing and bickering about Brexit – and are expected to be in place by next April.
After then, everyone will need to provide ID before they can access content, both free and paid. That will need to be something like a valid driving licence or an age verification card that can be bought from shops.
This ban was part of the Digital Economy Act last that was approved last year – it’s only taken this long because the British Board of Film Censors had to devise a plan as to how the age verification is going to work.
So, if you’re of age, how do you get verified?
It turns out that there will be a few companies who are going to offer services.
AVSecure will be one of the companies offering age verification. They reckon that their system will be live by 15 April.
AVSecure CEO Stuart Lawley told the Metro that 60,000 shops in the UK will sell verification cards which will be available by April.
He told them: “The British Board of Film Censors has been appointed as the regulator – and we expect they’ll give sites 90 days’ notice to comply, so it’ll probably be in place by mid-April.
“The BBFC will look at the methods age verification systems use to verify people are 18, so for instance, a name and address wouldn’t be enough – but a scan of a driving licence or a credit card and CVV number would be OK.”
So, as long as you’re willing to provide personal details, you’ll be OK! Great stuff.
Anyway, there will be several different companies offering a variety of services, but the upshot of it is that you’ll have to tell porn companies who you are and provide proof of age as of April if you live in the UK.
Still fancy it?
