To think face scanning for age verification for porn is a great idea?

[AdamRyan]

The Government are considering how to prevent children from accessing porn and are looking into face scanning technology.

I think this is a good idea as we already use facial recognition for verification on banks etc and if people are adults they should not feel embarassed about their choice to watch porn so no problem.

Privacy campaigners are worried about potential for blackmail though. Wish they were as worried about men illegally uploading films of their OHs having sex with them....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67615719

IABU - I think porn doesn't need age verification/existing verification is good enough

IANBU - this is a good idea

Also it's easy enough currently for a users viewing habits to be used for blackmail, if hackers were so inclined. That's just nonsense.

The underpinning driver for this is some men know what they are getting off to is unpleasant, and they are ashamed. It really exposes the line that "everyone watches porn, it's always existed"

You are ignoring all those other issues.

If you start face ID for porn, you get face ID other yummy topics, like abortion services soon.
Not as a revenge, just as a side effects of crossing that line once.

Or you could parent your child, restrict screen time and utilise ISP blocks for these websites.

The major problem isn't the blackmail issue, although that is potentially concerning.

It's the simple fact that it will not work. There are too many ways around it.

Porn is out there, kids are going to be interested and look for it and will get round any block that is added.

In order to stop harm, we need to educate children in an age appropriate way about it. How it can be harmful, unrealistic, misogynistic and dangerous.

The face scan, or other options Ofcom have suggested, is not a magic bullet that will make harm from porn go away. At most it'll be an ineffectual barrier, at worst it will give parents a false sense of security that their children can't access it so wont need to be educated.

I'd like to just stress, yet again, that there is absolutely no requirement for any sort of "work around", or any particularly savvy tech knowledge when 99%+ of the returns from a simple Google search will not feature this utterly ineffectual nonsense in any case.

There is no need to get into any discussion about the ease with which these measures can be undermined if they simply will not be in play in the first place.

It is, once again, the government pulling the wool over the eyes of concerned, but naively ignorant people, by throwing out a platitude that sounds great, but will have no practical consequences whatsoever.

Reduction of children seeing porn is a valid goal though, and this plan will contribute to that.

It's very convenient to porn users to make it black and white and say "it won't work" to every suggestion. But making it just harder for children to access porn is worthwhile.

Education can only go so far. Education on the harms of drugs has not stopped drug use, for example. And the fact is lots of men find watching the violent degradation of women arousing, regardless of what they've been "taught". Normalising porn use means normalising that behaviour and social acceptance is a powerful thing.

What?
Women already have to see two doctors to have their abortions approved, so that's just ridiculous.

We already get age verfication on people trying to purchase drugs/knives/ cigarettes/alcohol/gambling.

But trying to age verify access to porn, oh no, much too hard and the government are trying to take our liberties.

Nonsense

Education can only go so far. Education on the harms of drugs has not stopped drug use, for example

That argument only really has any relevance if you are aspiring for a scenario where there is zero drug use whatsoever, like, literally none, and any other beneficial effect is immaterial and a failure, and therefore pointless. What you can't account for is the effect of education on the reduction in volume of drug usage, or how it might serve to moderate they usage of those who do imbibe. Put more simply, I think it's beyond doubt that if we just abandoned drug education as a pointless endeavour we'd just end up with even more drug users, and associated increase in dependency, illness, and death.

Drugs are also illegal, possession is a criminal offence, yet people still posses, trade, and use drugs, so I don't think you can even argue that blanket bans on, or criminalising the usage of porn would solve your problem anyway.

I'm not arguing that. I think requiring age verification to access porn is a good idea.
In the past using credit cards has been dismissed so I think an app on phone that scans your phase to verify you are over 18 is a good idea to reduce children's access to porn.

Others are saying we should rely on better parenting and education, I strongly disagree.

Of course you do. Because heaven forbid you parent your kids. Let’s allow the government to go even more nanny state because you can’t be fucked to mange your kids.

I strongly disagree with intrusive tech creep that will make no difference to porn access but will make it easier to reduce our freedoms and privacy in other areas (as many others have already noted upthread).

Btw this that you said:
Women already have to see two doctors to have their abortions approved, so that's just ridiculous.

Not true. It has to be signed off by two doctors. I’m not sure I saw even one doctor for mine. Just nurses. I assume it was signed off behind the scenes, so to speak, for efficiency.

It is a totally pointless exercise and will solve nothing.

On page 2 of this thread OP said this:

I mean the porn sites could be required to ensure their UK based users 1) provide facial recognition 2) aren't on VPN

How exactly are sites meant to ensure UK based users aren’t on a VPN?

I’m thinking the people in favour of this are woefully tech naive/illiterate, which is why they don’t anticipate the mission creep and think it will actually make any difference to kids accessing porn. And is also why they want the government to do the parenting for them in this case with no thought given to anyone else.

Theres no excuse in 2023 to not know how this stuff works if you’re raising kids. It’s essential. It’s been a long time since it was a niche interest for introvert nerds—it’s nearly twenty years since Facebook came online. And if you think anyone in government or ofcom understands the internet any better than the average Twitter user, you’re fooling yourselves.

OP is willing to sacrifice privacy, online safety, pretty much anybody who's ever watched porn and anything else he doesn't know about in the name of protecting the children.

Trying to credit him (assuming, from the username) with knowledge of any kind is pretty much an act in futilty, as is educating him on how this stuff actually works.

You didn't have verification software approving it though and that will never happen, mainly because there would be no chance of anyone actually trusting women with their own bodily autonomy.

Regarding parenting, it makes no logical sense to simultaneously say kids want to see porn so much they will get round any tech barriers the government put in, and the answer is for parents to put in tech barriers. Of course teenagers get round any barriers their parents put in place, a lot more easily than ubiquitous barriers a company puts in.

The fact you need to resort to insulting my parenting shows your agenda completely. 🍆💦💻

😂
Ever heard of these people? https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/
You could follow some of their guidance to ensure your viewing habits are protected (and also understand more about client side/server side, encryption and data transfer. Would do you some good to get with the times)
Ridiculous hyperbole...sacrifice "anyone who's ever watched porn" to what exactly?

OP you do realise that the link you've just provided on national cyber security takes you to a page that announces a major Russia cyber hack of government data?

It's not a very great argument...

I think requiring age verification to access porn is a good idea

In isolation, nobody is going to argue otherwise.

The problem is, quite simply, that there is no jurisdiction that has either the authority or the means to actually enact a meaningful age restriction on accessing porn, given that the content is stored on servers in every corner of the planet.

So this legislation comes to pass in the UK, fine and dandy, you've restricted access to an utterly insignificant portion of all of the porn freely available on the internet, while the vast bulk is still instantly accessible due to not being subject to these new restrictions.

Lobby all the governments of the world to act in unison? Sure, go ahead, but you are wasting your time. Aside from the intransigent governments who simply do not care, you also have those where government restrictions on freedom of expression are contrary to their constitutions, so they wouldn't even entertain the idea in the first place. While you still have territories where suppliers of pornography are not subject to these laws, that is where they will store their content, and that is why your kids will still be able to access it completely unfettered, even though your government has enacted your age restriction laws.

What can be done in the meantime, is better, more effective, and more competent monitoring and policing of usage by those responsible for the minors, including asking if it is prudent to actually give a minor a smartphone with unfettered access to the web in the first place.

Government is essentially rendered impotent by the very nature of the internet itself, and the fact that all the governments of the world do not, and never will sing from the same hymn sheet in unison. What isn't rendered impotent is the individual, who absolutely can take prudent steps to limit what children have access to, if they so choose, and if they simply make the effort.

Hahaha
It takes you to NCSC homepage and if you read what the Russians have done, it's a bit more than a "hack"
There is also lots of guidance on how to be safe online there.

OK, so your answer is not to give teenagers smartphones or Internet access. Effectively cutting them off from their peer groups, affecting their ability to participate at school when they are asked to use phones etc.

And that's a much smarter solution than putting in place measures to make it a bit harder for everyone to access porn.

Gotcha.

The Online Safety Act already requires age verification for age inappropriate content.

It won't actually work and it was originally taken out of the Bill because everyone pointed out it wouldn't work. But the requirement is already there in statute.

Well it is, because who decided giving children access to the internet in their pocket 24/7 was a good idea? Why have schools embraced the use of phones and tablets to the extent they're replacing books?

If whole schools ban devices then the teens won't be social pariahs.

And that's a much smarter solution than putting in place measures to make it a bit harder for everyone to access porn

No, it's not "smarter", it's realistic, as opposed to your absolutely unworkable, nonsensical idea that an individual government can simply solve the problem by imposing some sort of age restriction.

I don't know how many more times it needs spelled out to you precisely why that is nothing more than an exercise in wishful thinking.

Quite.

We've been here before. It was risible nonsense the last time around, just as it is this time, only we were at least fortunate enough the last time that those driving it had the sense to realise they were punting snake oil, and backed away from it.

This time around, the lunatics are in charge of the asylum, so it's brakes off, charge ahead pell mell...

It isn't my idea, it's the Government’s proposal and I think its a good one.

Regarding the tech, I actually do know a little bit about the tech requirements for this and it's by no means impossible. People are just spouting rubbish, either because they don't understand, they are out of date with what is possible, or willfully to make it seem too hard.

There is also a tendency to black and white thinking which is unhelpful, e.g. if a measure doesn't block 100% of porn to children, it's pointless.

Anyway, here's a link to CoOp talking about how they use age scanning. I haven't seen any uproar about privacy in that case - the tech is the same, the principle is the same.

No data is stored, its used real time. This is part of why I say people are out of date - the technology has moved on so far and encryption is so good that I think the risk of hacking for blackmail is remote. But if people are concerned, they could just not access porn

https://www.coop.co.uk/age-scan#:~:text=The%20technology%20ensures%20age%20verification,algorithm%20to%20estimate%20your%20age.

It was taken out of the bill last time because of extensive lobbying by porn companies who understandably don't want the impact on their websites. Then it's been put back in because understandably people realise its impossible to reduce the impact to children from harmful online without it.