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United Kingdom The Internet

The UK Tries, Once Again, To Age-Gate Pornography (theverge.com) 95

Jon Porter reports via The Verge: UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has laid out how porn sites could verify users' ages under the newly passed Online Safety Act. Although the law gives sites the choice of how they keep out underage users, the regulator is publishing a list of measures they'll be able to use to comply. These include having a bank or mobile network confirm that a user is at least 18 years old (with that user's consent) or asking a user to supply valid details for a credit card that's only available to people who are 18 and older. The regulator is consulting on these guidelines starting today and hopes to finalize its official guidance in roughly a year's time.

Ofcom lists six age verification methods in today's draft guidelines. As well as turning to banks, mobile networks, and credit cards, other suggested measures include asking users to upload photo ID like a driver's license or passport, or for sites to use "facial age estimation" technology to analyze a person's face to determine that they've turned 18. Simply asking a site visitor to declare that they're an adult won't be considered strict enough. Once the duties come into force, pornography sites will be able to choose from Ofcom's approaches or implement their own age verification measures so long as they're deemed to hit the "highly effective" bar demanded by the Online Safety Act. The regulator will work with larger sites directly and keep tabs on smaller sites by listening to complaints, monitoring media coverage, and working with frontline services. Noncompliance with the Online Safety Act can be punished with fines of up to [$22.7 million] or 10 percent of global revenue (whichever is higher).

The guidelines being announced today will eventually apply to pornography sites both big and small so long as the content has been "published or displayed on an online service by the provider of the service." In other words, they're designed for professionally made pornography, rather than the kinds of user-generated content found on sites like OnlyFans. That's a tricky distinction when the two kinds often sit together side by side on the largest tube sites. But Ofcom will be opening a consultation on rules for user-generated content, search engines, and social media sites in the new year, and Whitehead suggests that the both sets of rules will come into effect at around the same time.

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The UK Tries, Once Again, To Age-Gate Pornography

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  • Problems (Score:2, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 )

    If this is merely to open an account, then kids will simply look through the parents' password book or exploit the fact that Google stores passwords and doesn't require authentication. They'd then just use their parents' account.

    If this is to access the site, then legit users will be discouraged or will set up a VPN to access the site from another country.

    Either that, or the kid will sneak into their parents' bedroom and borrow the credit card/passport.

    It's clear that there's a problem, from surveys of chil

    • Yes a 10-year old could probably circumvent this fairly easily, but I'm not so sure an 8 year old could, and a 5 year old certainly couldn't without help. That still has value. Even a slight barrier to entry would be helpful, if not foolproof, for keeping the younger kids from accessing it. The effectiveness is a sliding scale, not black-and-white.

      • by fleabag ( 445654 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @07:20AM (#64056005)

        I am reminded of the conversation I had with the father of my godson, who is non-technical. I saw his computer and asked him why he was running in a virtual machine. He looked at me blankly. Turned out the 10 year old godson (who has turned out to be very technical indeed) was running some hookey version of Hyper-V in his bedroom and his father was running a VM image given to him by his son.

        I recognise that this is not "normal".

        However, anyone who has been the keeper of children will know that they share information at a rate that is extraordinary. All it takes is some 16 year old to break whatever protection there is, and almost instantly the 10 year olds will know, and then the 6 year olds will know.

        The other problem is that will progress like piracy. You are not going to stop people under 18 looking at porn. What you are going to introduce them to is stolen credit card details and VPNs. Everyone is going to learn that VPNs are vital, and using burner cards for ID is simple. This doesn't seem like a great progression.

        • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          Children are NOT adults its plainly wrong to look at this in terms of the push pull behavior science we might otherwise apply to making policy for adults.

          Parents still have a huge role here. The point is to make things visibile to parents. You're godson's father should have probably asked his son - "Hey why doesn't the computer work like it used to, talk to me about it."

          Yes there are unfortunately terrible parents out there, who leave their adolescent children completely unsupervised and will put zero effo

          • by jd ( 1658 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (kapimi)> on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @08:43AM (#64056195) Homepage Journal

            And if they'd had better sex ed, a school that was more responsive to mental health, and a society that doesn't lionise getting "one over on the Man", the odds are much higher that they wouldn't be committing identity theft, at least not for that.

            The problem is that trying to barricade the front door whilst leaving the windows open isn't going to work, no matter how well the door is barricaded. Since sealing everything until it's airtight isn't an option, you have to look at altering the mindset of those who might want to enter.

            Good psychology is worth a thousand locks on the door.

        • by ediron2 ( 246908 )

          > Everyone is going to learn that VPNs are vital, and using burner cards for ID is simple. This doesn't seem like a great progression.

          Wut? That sounds fucking fantastic. I'm opposed to the legislation (as an old grey cypherpunk) but totally in favor of (billions of?) folks becoming conversant in VPNs, burner devices/cards, and any other 'nunyafuckinbidness' mechanisms for subverting surveillance (again, speaking as an old grey cypherpunk).

      • by shilly ( 142940 )

        The evidence that most British children as young as 10 are exposed to porn is really flimsy, and frankly doesn’t fit with the anecdata either, as many parents who have open discussions with their kids will attest.

        • Did they finally take away the page whatever it was girls? That's soft core, but it's still porn.

          I miss the pornographic auto parts ads, like nude chick with tire, ahh that was a classic.

          • by shilly ( 142940 )

            Page 3 girls haven’t been a thing for like 20 years

            • Would you believe ... four years [wikipedia.org]? Or nine years? "The Sun's UK print editions followed suit in January 2015, discontinuing Page 3 after more than 44 years. The Sun's official Page 3 website ceased publishing new content in March 2017 and was taken offline the following year. In April 2019, The Daily Star became the last print daily to move to a clothed glamour format, ending the Page 3 convention in Britain's mainstream tabloid press. As of 2023, the only British tabloid still publishing topless models is t
      • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

        If an 10 - 8 - 5 year old has unfettered access to the Internet which allows them to access porn today, before the law is in place, then I guarantee you that the law will have no effect in preventing access to porn.

        When parents can't be bothered to set it up now what makes you think they will trouble themselves after the law is in place? The 10 - 8 - 5 year old children will use the access with their parents credentials on. Your security can't be in the hands of strangers. This law still requires parents to

        • And how many 10 - 8 - 5 year olds do you know that have any interest whatsoever in porn? Ewwww, gross!

          Teenagers on the other hand... and they'll know vastly more than their parents about computers and easily bypass whatever the barriers are. Not to mention that requiring that adults upload an identity thief's ultimate haul to every other web site they visit is going to be a nightmare for security.

      • First, I'd say that you need to demonstrate that currently this is an actual issue, with 5 year olds accessing porn sites. I know I asked my son about it and he thought it was all pretty gross and far too yucky to even contemplate looking at pictures like that. But I'm sure there are some abused kids that also look at porn sites. In which case the issue seems to me that there is abuse, not that we have porn sites.

        It's always very easy to impose burdens on other people that you don't have to pay for

      • Even a slight barrier to entry would be helpful, if not foolproof, for keeping the younger kids from accessing it.

        Neither "slight barrier" nor "helpful [but] not foolproof" are the standards that have to be met : the required standard of performance is "highly effective".

        At risk of a 10% of global revenue fine, plus serious legal costs, implementing the most effective geoblocking you can is probably the most workable solution, since you can reasonably easily explain to a judge (probably not a jury - too "t

    • But it'll show up on the parents' bank card statements & then the kid'll have some explaining to do.

      Personally, I think it's desirable to at least somewhat restrict children's access to porn, violence, & some other things that they're not mature enough to process constructively yet. I mean, isn't that why we have these restrictions in the real world in the first place?
      • BTW, I absolutely detest the current cabinet in the UK & think they're dragging the whole country down into extremist National Conservatism ideologies but they can be right about some things, e.g. this. I hope the policies actually work out as per their publicly stated intentions. They have a history of being so incompetent & corrupt that they, more often than not, don't.
        • You hope it will work out, but there is no scientific basis for this hope, nor do they have a track record that suggests this will be doing anything more than putting additional taxes on porn sites.

          As collateral damage, the side effects of a data leak are now greatly enhanced and extortionists and espionage agencies are going to be having a lot more to work with. This will make those sites even more desirable for hackers to, ah, penetrate, than they already are.

      • It will not show up on bank card statements. They are not forcing porn sites to charge, merely to confirm age. Credit card/passport is simply used for that, no actual transaction.It will work about as well as Social Media age restrictions do, not at all. This is a means of appearing to do something without actually doing anything.
        • by mikeb ( 6025 )

          There is much truth in what you say here. For most politicians I have encountered in a long career, if legislation actually works 'as intended' that is considered a lucky and surprising bonus, since the real goal of the legislation was to show the electorate that 'something has been done'. If indeed it works, then so much the better, but that was not the primary objective, which is the garnering of votes by the appearance of activity.

      • by jd ( 1658 )

        I agree it's important to restrict access, but I'm not confident this method will work. At least, not in isolation. At some point, it's going to require changing attitudes and hacking values. Everything else is too easily bypassed.

      • I mean, isn't that why we have these restrictions in the real world in the first place?

        More likely we have restrictions on porn due to religious dogma. Seeing a nipple won't do any harm to a kid.

        • Seeing a nipple won't do any harm to a kid.

          No, but seeing them getting slapped and spat on and strangled would give them the wrong idea. We know this because adults who watch that kind of porn develop unrealistic expectations too.

          • No, but seeing them getting slapped and spat on and strangled would give them the wrong idea. We know this because adults who watch that kind of porn develop unrealistic expectations too.

            You mean your women don't like getting spit on while you pull their hair, etc?

            What do they do, just lie there?

            ;)

        • You're confusing regulating porn with imposing minority prudish values on the majority. The latter tends to happen more in the USA than this side of the Atlantic. We're fine with nudity over here. In fact, it's US companies & schools that keep getting in the news for blocking classic works of art & punishing teachers who dare to show students photos of them.
      • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

        The law doesn't require a purchase. So no it would not necessarily advise the parent to the child's access. Chances are the the parent will assume that it was a fraudulent charge since their little angle can't possibly do such a thing.

      • Why can't the parents restrict the child's access? They have far more draconian methods. The government can't block internet to the whole household if needed, or take away a phone. The parent can.
    • It's clear that there's a problem

      I am not sure what the problem is. Kids will see porn, masturbate and then go blind?

      I remember when I was kid in a communist country where porn was theoretically unavailable but practically we still got to see some (parents has some porn at home, brought from a different country, kids find it and take to school to brag in front of classmates)

    • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @07:22AM (#64056013)

      Rather ironic that "parenting" made it nowhere on your list, along with assuming that porn centers around "toxic" behavior that is specifically male, as if females never even want to watch porn.

      50 years ago when porn wasn't online and prevalent everywhere, and young boys were caught staring a little too hard at the bra and panty section of the Sears catalog, was that also some "mystery" that needed to be unraveled? Is masturbation among both young boys and girls some kind of enigma?

      Give me a break.

      • by jd ( 1658 )

        You can't legislate parenting, but you can legislate that schools give proper sex-ed classes and can legislate that schools take mental health seriously. Schools are under the control of governments, parents are not.

        Ergo, if you want a solution, parents are useless. Parents aren't going to follow advice, can't be disciplined, and it's impossible to quality control what goes on behind locked doors. Forget parents, if they wanted to be part of the equation then they already would be. Since they don't want to

        • Parents are useless, so let's start teaching 5-year olds that they should start thinking about what gender they want to be when they grow up?

          That's not called a "solution". It's called an indoctrination.

          And parents are free to rip their own children out of that environment and teach themselves. With full approval from Government. If we really want to sit back and try and argue today who would do a better job, I'd say teachers have a hell of a long road ahead of them given the product that's being create

          • by jd ( 1658 )

            Nobody is asking kids what gender they want to be when they grow up. That is the stupidest strawman argument I've heard in many years.

            Transgender, where it is real, is not a choice or a mental illness but a result of a genetic anomaly or anomalies in the mother's hormone levels in early foetal development.

            You're on Slashdot, which means you read science stuff, which means you have already been told this many times.

          • by jd ( 1658 )

            At every measured level, American education by religious schools and religious parents produces FAR worse results.

            Frankly, the government should simply prohibit anyone indoctrinated in a religious institution from being Federally employed.

    • then kids will simply look through the parents' password book or exploit the fact that Google stores passwords and doesn't require authentication

      If the parents don't sign in on their kids' computers, the parents will get a security announcement with some detailed information if they try to log in on their devices.

      If this is to access the site, then legit users will be discouraged or will set up a VPN to access the site from another country.

      Legal users being discouraged is something the porn industry has dea

      • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

        then kids will simply look through the parents' password book or exploit the fact that Google stores passwords and doesn't require authentication

        If the parents don't sign in on their kids' computers, the parents will get a security announcement with some detailed information if they try to log in on their devices.

        If this is to access the site, then legit users will be discouraged or will set up a VPN to access the site from another country.

        Legal users being discouraged is something the porn industry has dealt with since the old days of seedy theaters and having to buy content in public.

        VPNs can at least be blocked on iPhones and Android devices if those stores set up age restrictions on installing the services, which they should be pressured to do if they're not already doing that. Minors have no legitimate needs for VPNs without their parents' informed consent.

        Either that, or the kid will sneak into their parents' bedroom and borrow the credit card/passport.

        If they're doing that, the parents already have bigger problems. Also, the kid's not going to likely get away with it if the sites charge a nominal fee unless the parents never scan their credit card charge history for potential abuse.

        The parents you describe will not benefit from this law since they are already vigilant. The parents that are not vigilant will not benefit from this law because, they are not vigilant and can't be bothered.

        This is about making lazy people feel good about themselves. It doesn't address the problem. The tools that address the problem are available today and were available always. Children need supervision. Parents need to vet what the child has access to. Expecting that some stranger halfway around the world

        • by jd ( 1658 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (kapimi)> on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @10:00AM (#64056473) Homepage Journal

          Kids who are victims of parental abuse or whose parents are dissidents in their country most definitely need a VPN connection.

          (You don't seriously imagine a parent who abused their child would give the child permission to install software that would let them report it in secret, do you?)

          But abuse isn't restricted to sexual abuse. There's also religious abuse. Fundamentalists often ban access to books - indeed it's a running joke that the Deep South has banned more books in the name of free speech than almost anyone else in history. Those kids need VPNs their parents don't know about to access online libraries and other information resources.

          Given the extremely high number of child pregnancies in the Deep South and the almost total ban on abortion there, children there need VPNs to be able to safely communicate with groups operating under the radar who can provide counselling and the medication needed. In that case, they're not only having to evade fanatical parents but a fanatical evil State as well, who consider themselves above the law and may well monitor Internet traffic illegally in the name of their fanaticism.

          You've other countries to consider, too. Had the 70s Soweto children's uprising occurred with modern technology and VPNs, it's much less likely the authorities would have been able to massacre them and much more likely that news outlets around the world would have had live, anonymous, footage, allowing identification of shooters. This is why modern fascist regimes hate VPNs. It makes it much harder to get away with murder.

          No, everyone needs to be able to use a VPN.

    • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      Oh no a kid might use a fake id to buy some booze, or pay some 20 something to do it for them, and raid dad's liquor cabinet while he is out of the house - the world will come to an end!

      No that is not the point at all. The point is to add just a little friction to discourage kids for causally using without thinking about consequences. In the case of substances its to make it a little less likely little Sally shares her stuff with young Tammy.

      This sounds like about the right place to start in terms of bala

      • by jd ( 1658 )

        The problem is that parents DON'T act responsibly. Which is why we need laws to oblige parents to behave.

        Even with those in place, the UK has seen a doubling of parents taking kids on term-time holidays because schooling is considered "optional".

        The US is even worse - States that have relaxed their child labour laws so that kids can serve their corporate masters rather than learn the skills to function in a modern society are seeing an uptick in child deaths in heavy machinery in the workplace. That the par

    • and demystifying toxic male behaviour

      What the fuck is "toxic male behavior"?

      I'm trying to think, and about all I can come up with, is the proverbial worksite laborers cat calling girls that walk by.

      Ok, I'll give you that one, but for the life of me, I can't think of anything else...?

      I mean, that isn't pervasive through society...I mean, there just aren't that many work sites to worry about that have good looking women walk by....

      Of course drastic, criminal behavior, like rape....isn't really a common

    • this is about two things.

      hard and their right wing conservative government needs to throw meaningless bones at their base.

      Second, tracking. To enforce this you basically break anonymity. The schemes I've seen that are meant to preserve that are easy enough to get around. There's all sorts of fun stuff you can do with that data.

      And that's *if* they implement one of those anonymity schemes. Here in America I've seen proposals that just flat out require you to register with your ISP "paper's please"
  • "or for sites to use "facial age estimation" technology to analyze a person's face to determine that they've turned 18. "

    'Watch this, dad, make a happy face for my new selfie app"

  • by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:40AM (#64055831)

    What am I missing here? How do they punish sites with zero UK presence?

    Are they proposing to stop ISPs offering non-compliant sites - and won't VPNs / Tor trivially prevent such blockages?

    Granted it's probably worth the effort; the UK's record on sex education is such that far too many of our kids get more 'educated' by porn sites than by either schools or even, shock horror, parents...

    • Also note the fine amount. They looked at GDPR maximum fines (4% of turnover) and just picked a higher number to make it look like they're serious. In reality, not one fine will be collected as the companies will just tell them to fuck off. They already know this, so no fine will be issued in the first place. It's all "think of the children" bullshit.

      Also: if I'm not about to upload an image of my driving license for age / identity verification for the NHS app I'm certainly not going to do so for a porn sit

      • "think of the children"

        But not while you're looking at porn.

        • "think of the children"

          But not while you're looking at porn.

          Well, this is the UK government we're talking about.

      • In reality, not one fine will be collected as the companies will just tell them to fuck off.

        Yeah that's not how laws work when you're based somewhere. Aside from the fact that some companies have offices and employees and are registered in the UK, there's also a hell of a lot of porn production that is actually British. Studios like Killergram, Jim Slip, or Harmony Vision are major internationally recognised names that are actually British, and that's before you consider countless local specific sites that cater to British audience specifically.

        • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

          Yes. That is how laws work. The UK is a very small part of the world. This law will only increase the cost of UK based companies. It won't stop children's access to porn.

          • I didn't say it will stop access to porn, that literally can't happen. I just disagreed with the absurd notion that a UK based company can just decide not to pay a fine resulting from breaking a UK based law.

            Please try and follow the conversation.

            • None of the example named companies have a UK presence. Hence the likely Arkell v Pressdram response to a fine.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Honestly, I don't think collecting fines is their goal with this legislation; they're trying to ban porn without saying that they're banning porn. With what they've proposed and the information security nightmare that storing all of verification information, it will make operating any website that shows bare breasts (or more) totally infeasible inside British borders. I don't think there's a single sane company that would consider these risks worth operating.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @07:18AM (#64056003) Homepage Journal

      Many non-UK sites will probably comply, just to avoid looking like they flout the law. Porn sites are in a precarious position, because it's hard to find legitimate advertisers, keep the content legal, process payments for adult services with high rates of chargebacks etc.

      Of course it will be trivial to work around, but on paper the Tories can say they did something and it's "working".

      The fun really starts when people have been trained to enter their credit card details to access porn, making credit card fraud so much easier. Banks will have to start sending customers emails reminding them not to enter their details on porn sites they don't trust.

      And then the face scan blackmail... It won't be long before some Tory MPs are caught up in that. Those fake emails claiming to have a photo of your face and the porn site you were on might actually become real!

    • by brunes69 ( 86786 )

      If you allow UK subscribers then the government can impose fines.

      If you don't then you're outside their jurisdiction.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @08:54AM (#64056217)

      What am I missing here? How do they punish sites with zero UK presence?

      Are they proposing to stop ISPs offering non-compliant sites - and won't VPNs / Tor trivially prevent such blockages?

      Granted it's probably worth the effort; the UK's record on sex education is such that far too many of our kids get more 'educated' by porn sites than by either schools or even, shock horror, parents...

      This isn't about actually doing something, it's about making it look like the Tories are doing something. Throwing a bit of red meat at their baying voter base (which seems to be shrinking daily).

      The sad thing about the UK is that it seems to have a subset of puritans that give the US a run for their money, albeit in far fewer number. There are a small but vocal crowd of Daily Express readers who blame everything on either porn or drugs, no matter what it is. I had one of them tell me, with a straight face, that people were stealing baby formula (milk powder) to buy drugs. When I asked why were drug dealers buying baby formula, he just blinked and repeated almost monotonal, "they're selling it to buy drugs" (erm... people steal baby formula because they have a baby and are too poor to afford the £9 for baby formula, just in case there is any confusion). So the Tories pander to these people with unenforceable policies like this because it makes them look tough on porn.

      The sooner the Tories are out the better it will be for the UK. Whilst Labour may not be able to fix 13 years of Tory sabotage to the country for a long time, they can at least stop making it worse immediately.

    • the big commercial sites will ,but enforcement requires either a Chinese style "Great Firewall" or it doesn't work.

      The upshot is that instead of kids going to relatively safe commercial sites they're going to be going to dodgy as fuck (pun not intended) ones.

      But this isn't about safety, this is about getting folks used to an Iranian Ayatollah style morality police. It's like boiling a frog.
  • The guidelines being announced today will eventually apply to pornography sites both big and small so long as the content has been "published or displayed on an online service by the provider of the service." In other words, they're designed for professionally made pornography, rather than the kinds of user-generated content found on sites like OnlyFans. That's a tricky distinction when the two kinds often sit together side by side on the largest tube sites.

    That doesn't distinguish between professionally made and user-generated content at all, and doesn't appear to try to. I could make a site purely and only for professionally made porn and not upload any of it myself (perhaps providing a cut of revenues to the companies who do produce and post it or maybe charging them a fee for limited clips as a form of advertising) and not be covered by that wording.

  • Sounds like the intro to a stupid joke.

    The Internet will stay free. Asshats like Texans, Brits, and Republicans can hide
    behind their mommy's skirt and hope the "evil porno" doesn't reach their dear little
    selves.

    Unless of course you realize they're just trying to hide being pieces of shit.
    https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]

    E

  • We're a small player in the international market, and this is a Conservative government on its last legs facing oblivion at the next election. It would be a different matter if it was the EU proposing this.
    • We're a small player in the international market

      No you're not. You horny fuckers (pun intended) are a very large player in the international market, consistently in number two across many porn sites (e.g. xhamster, and Pornhub) behind only the USA,... a country with 5x the population.

      The UK is a big player which accounts not only for a significant portion of porn consumption, but also has quite a lot of internationally recognised production studios too.

    • by shilly ( 142940 )

      But the little shits have got this into law and now Ofcom have got the duty, and will feel obliged to try to enforce something, despite the obvious harms and risks, and the inability to gain benefit.

  • I've had to use my id on these sites to get age restricted content, plus any site that even hints at cryptocurrency has extensive id requirements in the uk. The uk also introduced voter id too.
    • by shilly ( 142940 )

      Not many people would be humiliated to have the fact that they use YouTube put in the public domain, but many people would be humiliated to have the fact they use YouPorn put in the public domain. So they’ll risk being linked to the former via ID verification, but not the latter. For the latter, they’ll use a VPN instead.

    • It's not that bad, they're happy with any id you provide to them, it needn't be yours.

    • Who on Earth would do that? There's plenty of free sites in the world that don't ask this. And even then, there's always the Piratebay. Arrrrrrrh!

  • Host your service outside their jurisdiction and simply don't give a toss about what they want.

  • So we know the sides: UK Church Lady Police vs Horny Teenage Boys. We KNOW who is going to win this. I'm just dying watch the fight.

    • Let's see... on one side of the fight is horny teen boys with a lot of time at their hands who are internet-natives and who can score big respect points from their peers if they can get them access to the forbidden pages. In league with them is the providers of that content who are very keen to offer these horny teens that content if they somehow get away with it.

      Up against them is a group of overprotective busybodies without any real problems so they meddle in stuff they don't know fuck all about, especial

  • Obviously the information requested will not be collected from kids (they are not supposed to have it) but from adults. So a company will have for example a copy of my driving license. And if the government checks that they collected this info, then the government will know what I am doing in my spare time.

    Another item was a credit card. Which means I hand over my credit card to a porn site? WTF?

    The easiest and safest method would be if your phone supplier would verify the phone owner's date of birth,
    • by swm ( 171547 )

      your phone supplier would verify the phone owner's date of birth, the porn site asks your phone "is the owner 18 or older", and the phone says "yes" or "no". With exactly one bit of personally identifiable information.

      The phone can send the age bit along with the evil bit.
      Problem solved!

      • "The phone can send the age bit along with the evil bit."

        I liked it, but Slashdot is not the Geekdom it once was, plus I too am old.

        I looked at your Homepage rant on bad physics texts. I was reminded of the instructions I gave to my children and now give to my grandchildren.

        "Every test question is actually two questions. The first is whatever the test says. The second is always the same regardless of subject, "Guess what I'm thinking!"
  • ...and will treat this like a game
    Most will win, fairly easily

  • This will be exactly as useful in preventing access to porn as the "age restrictions" did on Playboy magazine at the corner store. It will deter nobody. Now if the goal is to make a useless, symbolic gesture, then sure. Have at it. Goal achieved.

    Now, political goals are legitimate goals, so don't think I'm dismissing the whole thing as valueless. It's just that the value isn't what it says on the sticker.

  • It's telling not one of the approved methods is the non privacy invading RTA meta tags that already work with every major device / browser / search engine. Make no mistake, this is about trying to censor porn by putting up privacy invasive roadblocks that most people are not willing to do.
  • The only method that keeps children out of porn sites is strict parental control. If the parent is not able to monitor or control what their child gets into on the internet, then that parent should lock kid out the system unless and until they can actually the monitor the activity.

    If you believe otherwise, IMHO, then you really aren't an internet user. Even with blocking software installed, it's possible to find images/videos that most people would classify as porn. That the UK government thinks it can poli

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