Government climbs into bed with porn giant for age checks
THE moguls behind the world’s biggest pornography websites have been entrusted by the Government with policing the internet to keep it safe for children.
MindGeek staff have held a series of meetings with officials in preparation for the new age verification system which is designed to ensure that under-18s cannot view adult material.
Tens of millions of British adults are expected to have to entrust their private details to MindGeek, which owns the PornHub and YouPorn websites.
Critics have likened the company’s involvement to ‘entrusting the cigarette industry with stopping underage smoking’ and want an independent body to create the system instead.
The age checks form part of the Digital Economy Act, which comes into effect in April. The new system is expected to be regulated by the British Board of Film Censorship, but porn publishers will implement their own age checks. Sites failing to verify the age of users can be fined and those that do not comply will be blocked.
One system developed by MindGeek, AgeID, will ask people to create an account using their name and email address. They are likely to have to use bank details or ID to confirm their age. The firm anticipates 25 million people in the UK will sign up.
A Mail on Sunday investigation has found that material on the company’s porn websites could be in breach of the Obscene Publications Act.
A search for one sexual act, which would be considered illegal to publish videos of under the Obscene Publications Act, returned nearly 20,000 hits on PornHub.
‘They cannot even police their own sites’
The Mail on Sunday did not watch any of the videos.
Officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have met MindGeek staff and other age verification firms at least five times.
Shadow Culture Minister Liam Byrne said: ‘It is alarming that a company given the job of checking whether viewers of pornography are over 18 can’t even police publication of illegal material on its own platform.’
Anti-porn campaigner Gail Dines added: ‘Why would the Government entrust the world’s biggest pornography company to stop people accessing pornography?
‘It’s like entrusting the cigarette industry with stopping underage smoking. This is a predatory industry that will do whatever it takes to maximise profits.’
MindGeek’s own website makes no mention of its porn empire, instead billing itself as a supplier of a ‘world-class portfolio of entertainment experiences and IT solutions’.
A DCMS spokesman said: ‘The Government will not be endorsing individual age-verification solutions but they will need to abide by data protection laws to be compliant. In our efforts to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online, we have engaged with a wide range of stakeholders.’
MindGeek did not respond to questions about illegal content on its websites. However, the company said AgeID would encrypt personal information.