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Members of the UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party want to toughen the law so that websites must implement more thorough age checks in order to prevent youngsters from accessing pornography. As a result, Sunak is facing another uprising from party members.
All porn websites would be required to deploy age verification systems within six months of the long-debated Online Safety Bill’s passing under a series of modifications that are currently being prepared. It’s the most recent reaction from legislators after a planned uprising by Tory MPs earlier this month that led Sunak to give in to calls for Big Tech directors to risk jail time if they fail to delete damaging information.
The House of Lords’ upper, revising chamber is due to start debating the Online Safety Bill, a bill intended to safeguard children online, on Monday.
According to the new regulations, which are anticipated to be discussed in late February, people will be required to demonstrate that they are over 18 using strict age verification procedures already used for online gaming, such as uploading an ID card or credit card information. A more private method of doing this is by using a third-party tool to make sure that a person’s identify is not directly connected to the porn site.
The Conservative peer James Bethell, who is in charge of the revisions, said in an interview on Tuesday that we need a firm deadline and commitment to hard-gated required age verification. “The current measures are an aspirational kumbaya that leaves open too many loopholes, no enforcement, and no deadline.”
Other methods of age verification, such as utilizing software that determines someone’s age by studying their face on a webcam or phone camera, do not need any identification documents. With the aid of Yoti-made software, OnlyFans already employs this strategy.
Bethell thinks that porn is so dangerous to children that immediate regulation is required, despite the government’s claim that the law must remain generic to allow it to keep up with evolving technology.
Attempts by lawmakers to enact age restrictions for adult-only websites have already been made. Age verification restrictions were included in the 2017 Digital Economy Act, but the administration removed them before it put them into effect.
