Updated 17th April 2019
And seemingly keen for that “good news story” while much tea is drunk flummoxed how to actually escape the “Brexit impasse” while an extension leaves an EU divorce perhaps as long as a year—and perhaps more—away:
Online pornography age checks to be mandatory in UK from 15 July (theguardian.com).
The UK’s age verification system for online pornography will become mandatory on 15 July, the government has confirmed.
From that date, commercial providers of online pornography will be required to carry out “robust” age verification checks on users, in order to keep children from accessing adult content.
With UK internet service providers seemingly to be commanded to block websites that don’t implement “robust” checks and mostly non-UK payment services to cease providing service too.
But while critics continue to point out how easy it will be to bypass the restrictions (bbc.co.uk), it is at last makes clearer what sites need to provide age checks and which will not:
Twitter, Reddit and image-sharing community Imgur, for example, will not be required to administer the scheme because they fall under an exception where more than a third of a site or app’s content must be pornographic to qualify.
Likewise, any platform that hosts pornography but does not do so on a commercial basis—meaning it does not charge a fee or make money from adverts or other activity—will not be affected.
So not applying to the cloud storages such as Rapidgator, MEGA et al., the real targets seemingly being the porn tubes and camgirl streaming sites, with ironically Pornhub owners Mindgeek ready to cash in providing what is likely to be the mostly widely used age check service:
Mindgeek, one of the adult industry’s biggest players, has developed an online system of its own called AgeID, which it hopes will be widely adopted. It involves adults having to upload scans of their passports or driving licences, which are then verified by a third-party.
But indeed adults able to buy a “porn pass” in the highstreet too:
High street stores and newsagents will also sell separate age-verification cards to adults after carrying out face-to-face checks, according to the government.
Seemingly in the form of Mindgeek’s AgeID PortesCard, available from “selected high street retailers and any of the UK’s 29,000 PayPoint outlets” (ageid.com) so likely not bringing custom back to long deserted out of the way corner shops. And at £4.99 for use on a single device and £8.99 for use on multiple devices, adding to customers growing streaming subscription fatigue.
Although seemingly there being no guarantee a particular site will accept any particular porn pass purchased:
Those “porn passes” that your friendly local newsagent may soon dish out are a theoretical solution, but there is no obligation for any porn site to accept them.
So, you may potentially have to verify yourself several times for several porn sites.
So should rival porn passes be available still seemingly forcing those that probably have not subscribed before into Seth’s porn dilemma in the beginning scene of Superbad (GoogleTube) but at least without actually subscribing to a particular site and having to pick the one with the least dirty sounding name.
And giving the disgusted of Tunbridge Wells (Wikipedia) a role of watchdogs to be able to further engage online too:
The BBFC has said it will also create an online form for members of the public to flag non-compliant sites once the new regulations come into effect.
Age-verification under the Digital Economy Act 2017 (ageverificationregulator.com).
The UK Government has appointed the BBFC as the Age-verification Regulator because of our long and proven experience in classifying films, videos, websites and more, and our knowledge of online regulation. Our job is to set and enforce standards.
Updated 30th May 2019
EXCLUSIVE: Porn block law ‘could be delayed’ as officials admit they ‘can’t enforce’ it (dailystar.co.uk).
Seemingly although hoped to be a “good news story” after Parliamentary constipation over Brexit it may need to be similarly “delayed” facing up to similar realisation that after promises made nothing was actually patriotically up enough to be got out.
GOVERNMENT officials have admitted for the first time they will be unable to enforce the “porn block law” if browsers such as Firefox and Chrome roll out DNS encryption.
“DNS encryption” (mozilla.org, Jun. 2018) allowing browser to keep secret the website visited, which both have promised, although with Google rolling over for a virtual tummy tickle after concerns were raised it would interfere with the blocking of terrorist material (dailystar.co.uk) and leave PM Theresa May with the help of GCHQ unable to determine which Jihadi’s cam needs to watched while they are pulling one off (Pick of the Week 5th Mar. 2014) in the last few weeks of her short and none-too-sweet stint at No. 10 and giving Mozilla’s Firefox, which the red top reports as becoming “ less popular in recent years” a chance to make a “comeback” and presumably giving excuse for more copy on how to circumvent the ban (dailystar.co.uk, Apr. 2019).
Speaking at the Internet Service Providers Association’s Annual Conference earlier this week, Mark Hoe, from the government’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said they would not be “able to block” websites that violate the porn block and enforce the new law.
With it seemingly untenable to expect Internet Service Providers to be able to block access to non-compliant sites if not having a fucking clue as to what sites are being visited with DNS encrypting browser.
But then again, the porn block law is really aimed at ensuring sites police access them self and any site not having those age checks in place will still be blacklisted by whatever payment service used regardless since it is really only being aimed at those those sites that maintain a degree of porno respectability rather than any ol’ Eastern European tubes site with pinched streams making its profit from “Play this game, it will make you cum in 10 second” ads with free ntial for a malware drive-by-download.
And of course, reality is never allowed to trump bureaucracy anyway:
In an official statement, however, a government spokesman told Daily Star Online the law would come into force in a couple of months, as planned, but without explaining how it will enforce it.
With the original date for introduction being April 2018, then April 2019 and then 15th July… will the family values flagship finally be rolled out in a “couple of months as planned” or be delayed again with fear of cost of feeding white elephants arse, until the 15th July 2020 perhaps?
Updated 19th June 2019
So, no surprise that:
‘Porn block’ delayed for third time after government climbdown—Sky sources (news.sky.com).
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Secretary Jeremy Wright is expected to announce the climbdown in Parliament on Thursday.
The regulator, the British Board of Film Classification, was told of the development on Wednesday afternoon.
With the turtlehead that is the Brexit impasse still unbudging and thus it still not yet time for it to be that “good news story” that play’s well with public’s un-nawty bits, so all those boxes full of AgeID PortesCard’s will have to sit on warehouse shelf to wait a little longer before finally being sent to landfill.
So, what was the issue resulting the delay this time:
Sky News understands the issue was not technical, but bureaucratic.
When laying the BBFC’s guidance in Parliament in late 2018, DCMS failed to notify the European Commission as it is required to, undermining the legal basis of age verification.
So, there you go, undoubtedly much fist-shaking at “bloody Euro foreigners” making a mockery of Lil’ English puritan hard work, values and bureaucracy once again, but likely leaving the DCMS lamenting it cannot hire at least one of those Brussels bureaucrats to leave a Post-It note of what-needs-to-be-done instructions to help them do their job.
Updated 20th June 2019
Indeed, the delay seemingly “indefinite”, suggesting somewhat more than just forgetting to notify the European Commission:
UK’s porn age-verification system faces indefinite delay (theguardian.com).
The UK’s age-verification system for online pornography is expected to be delayed indefinitely, just weeks before it is due to be launched.
And with those porno passes to be sent to landfill at some infinite time, some set to lose more than governmental face:
The delay is also damaging to many British age-verification businesses who had invested substantial sums of money in developing systems to provide the tools required to check internet user’s identities. They were relying on the launch going well in order to sell their product around the world and make the UK a hub for global age-verification systems, with many backed by small investors who could lose out in the event of a lengthy delay.
Those “British age-verification businesses” being those presumably coded while dressed in tweed and in VBScript, rather than Canadian MindGeek, owner of most porn hubs and tubes as well as several of the big production companies, who looked set to hoover up the age verification business in a similar manor to how they have the porno business itself.
But The Grauniad’s “indefinite” becoming six-months after the DCMS statement admitting its cock-up:
UK age-verification system for porn delayed by six months (theguardian.com).
Culture secretary Jeremy Wright telling the House of Commons it was because of a failure to comply with European law in how statutory instruments are passed:
“In autumn last year, we laid three instruments before the house,” Wright told the Commons. ”One of them sets out standards that companies need to comply with. This should have been notified to the European commission, and it was not. This will result in a delay in the region of six months.”
Emphasising that the delay did not mean the government was backing down from its policy, but of course that will fall under the responsibility of a new Prime Minister.
But with former DCMS head-honcho Matt Hancock having shifted to be charged with looking after the nations health as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care then trying his luck with a grasp for the XXL pants required of a leader of a populace in a state of austerity plague mass delusion convinced their sovereignty was pinched when they were in the loo sometime after entering middle-age, it’s not impossible to imagine Wright could be trying his luck at that time trying on ever-increasingly immense PM trousers after granny comes to the realisation BoJo is a lying rotter too after all having done a bunk finding it was all a lot less fun than he thought.