Major pornography sites to introduce 'robust' age verification for UK users

Major pornography sites including Pornhub and Redtube volition present "highly effectual property checks" from the 25 July successful the UK for the archetypal time.

New Ofcom rules designed to support children from seeing harmful contented online travel into unit adjacent month, with "robust" property checks a "cornerstone" of the regulations, according to the communications regulator Ofcom.

Under the Online Safety Act, property verification and property estimation indispensable beryllium "highly effective" astatine correctly determining whether a idiosyncratic is nether 18 for sites hosting harmful content.

Highly effectual property checks see recognition paper checks, unfastened banking oregon facial property estimation.

According to caller probe by the regulator, 8% of 8 to 14-year-olds successful the UK visited a pornography tract successful 1 period with 19% of boys aged 13 and 14 visiting the sites. Around 11% of girls the aforesaid property visited pornography sites successful 1 month.

As portion of the caller rules, platforms indispensable besides guarantee property verification measures don't exclude adults from accessing ineligible contented oregon compromise their privacy.

Ofcom said the different sites that person confirmed they volition bring successful the caller property checks correspond a wide scope of pornography services accessed successful the UK.

"Society has agelong protected youngsters from products that aren't suitable for them, from intoxicant to smoking oregon gambling. But for excessively agelong children person been lone a click distant from harmful pornography online," said Oliver Griffiths, Ofcom's radical manager of online safety.

"Now, alteration is happening. These property checks volition bring pornography into enactment with however we dainty big services successful the existent world, without compromising entree and privateness for over-18s."

Read much from Sky News:
Doctors utilizing unapproved AI to grounds diligent meetings
Minecraft users targeted by cyber criminals

In France, pornography operators including Pornhub precocious "went dark" successful protestation against caller property verification rules akin to those required successful the UK.

"I tin corroborate that Aylo has made the hard determination to suspend entree to its user-uploaded platforms successful France. We volition beryllium utilizing our platforms to straight code the French nationalist tomorrow," a spokesperson for Pornhub said connected 3 June.

"If Aylo would alternatively permission France than use our laws, they are escaped to bash so," Clara Chappaz, France's inferior curate for artificial quality and integer technology, wrote successful a station connected societal media level X.

Sky News has contacted Pornhub and Redtube for comment.