Web porn age check crackdown is delayed

ONLINE porn age checks will be delayed in Britain, ministers confirmed yesterday.

Compulsory age checks for those accessing explicit images online were due to be introduced from April after the Mail’s Block Online Porn campaign.

But the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said this will now start ‘later in the year’. ‘We need to take the time to make sure we get it right,’ a spokesman said.

The regulator, the British Board of Film Classification, has yet to explain how the process will work. Last July, then digital minister Matt Hancock set an April 2018 deadline for the introduction of an age verification scheme.

The new rule means online pornography viewers will have to prove they are over the age of 18 to watch explicit material. Possible methods include passport authentication. Sites failing to comply could face fines of up to £250,000.