Crackdown on children accessing porn
Culture Secretary appoints film censorship board to ensure internet providers enforce age verification
PORNOGRAPHY websites that refuse to check ages before allowing people to watch explicit videos will be forcibly blocked, it has been announced.
The move is part of the Government’s crackdown on online porn, amid fears it is too easy for children to inadvertently watch adult footage.
Theresa May is continuing a drive initiated under David Cameron to take action as charities found that half of all 11- to 16-year-olds have viewed online pornography. In a bid to better protect children, Tory ministers have said that the regulator will soon be allowed to shut down access to websites.
Internet providers could face punishments if they fail to act on the demand for a site to be blocked by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which regulates age verification.
It is an attempt to force porn websites to make visitors reveal how old they are before gaining access – seen as a key step in reassuring families their children will not stumble across adult footage online.
Karen Bradley, the Culture Secretary, said: “We made a promise to keep children safe from harmful pornographic content online and that is exactly what we are doing.
“Only adults should be allowed to view such content and we have appointed a regulator, BBFC, to make sure the right age checks are in place to make that happen. If sites refuse to comply, they should be blocked.” Age verification, which forces people to state their date of birth before entering a website, is being pushed by the Government as a way to protect children from viewing adult videos.
Currently the BBFC has the power to send warning letters demanding a website adopts age verification and can withdraw payment services if they refuse to comply.
Ministers are now giving the regulator a third power, allowing them to demand internet service providers block access to pornography sites that refuse to check ages. The powers will be brought forward in amendments to the Digital Economy Bill later this month. Crucially the move will include blocking access to websites based abroad, because internet service providers in the United Kingdom can control what Britons can access. Often the offending websites are based in the United States.
The Government is understood separately to be looking at ways to make age verification more effective, such as matching information submitted to electoral records or bank details.
It comes after research commissioned by the NSPCC and the Children’s Commissioner for England found that the majority of children are exposed to porn by their early teens.
Around 53 per cent of 11 to 16-yearolds have encountered porn online, nearly all of whom have seen it by the age of 14, according to the study by Middlesex University.
More than a quarter of that group had first been confronted with explicit content when they were only 11 or 12 years old.
The NSPCC said an entire generation of children was at risk of being “stripped of their childhoods” through exposure to pornography at a young age.
Claire Perry, one of the Tory MPs praised by the Culture Secretary for working “tirelessly” on internet safety, welcomed the announcement.
She said: “I’m really pleased that the Government has decided to give the new age verification regulator blocking powers for sites that don’t comply with the age verification legislation.
“There has been so much cross-party campaigning on this and it’s great that all the work from the parliamentary backbenches has led to this valuable change.”