Although quite widely publicised, i'm still shocked that most people I discuss this with aren't aware of the potential changes that are coming.
Given we are now potentially 2 weeks away from the enforcement coming in, I was wondering how people were feeling about it.
Quick roundup for those living under a rock, Anyone wishing to view "adult content" online will need to verify their ID, either through the use of a credit card, upload ID and have it verified or go to a shop and buy a "porn pass" to access.
Do you think this will change your habits ? Are you going to get verified ? How would you prefer to be verified ?
But mostly, do you think this will work ?
Personally, I'd verify, ideally via a credit card or similar. I do believe it's a good idea to restrict adult content. I am however massively skeptical that this could be enforced. Furthermore, there will always be data privacy concerns around submitting your personal and financial details alongside sexual interest details to the equivalent of an age verificating Mark Zuckerberg.
Possibly the big "tube" sites may comply, however when they see the smaller sites not complying (or more likely their ad revenue decreasing), they may decide the age verification wall will come down and anyways, a horny teen is going to find a way to get what they want, whether thats through the use of a VPN or going to seedier sites that ignore the enforcement.
Just use a VPN, don’t trust giving my credit card out as a form of ID, it doesn’t work if you wanna prove your age in a pub for instance. Fraudsters will be rubbing there hands together.
Your on the money, with that they will go to seedy sites and will end up looking at worse things than they are doing down. I have a 13 yo, that's my concern. And they all seem to be so open about it to, I have found porn on all our devices in the house there is no shame to it these days. They don't care who knows, what they are looking at.
This and article 13 are really troubling. Hopefully a vpn will get around it, but a lot of the times VPN ip addresses are banned on certain sites, so it would be easy for them to stop us bypassing the restriction.
101SexBot - no you're right, sites such as this site and forum wouldn't be included. The Online Pornography Regulations 2018 sets out a few stipulations around what counts as commercial pornographic content and there are a few different stipulations that will catch a lot of websites. Something can be classed as commercial porn under the law if it has to be paid for or if the person making it will be paid or receive some kind of benefit. Websites that have more than one-third of their content falling into previous categories will need to have an age verification system in place. Its completely nonsensical and unenforceable
The regulations will probably stand as EU Regulations are usually enshrined in the Member States statues of law. Therefore the UK will have its own laws on the subject which will need to be repealed if it does not want to follow the EU Regulations. Given the intent of what the EU Regulations are trying to prevent, which is minors viewing porn, it unlikely that the UK Government will repeal this when it enters the UK statues, so leaving the EU will have no impact. Please check as I am not a lawyer this just my understanding of how EU Regulations become law in Member States.