Porn age checks - Surely a good thing?

[Vimtolady]

Just read a ‘debate’ on the BBC News website about the pros and cons of age verification of porn websites. Weirdly I was verified for the first time myself last night (I am a porn user but not all the time) so was interested to read it.

j get that it was a debate but I honestly don’t see how anyone could object. Last night I wasn’t expecting to be verified but the process was simple, took about a minute and I don’t think I’d have easily been able to circumvent it. Obviously there are security concerns but no more so than with any other website.

I think these checks are great! My eldest DC is 13 so probably getting to (or at) the age when porn might become interesting to her, and this would make it much more difficult to access which would doubtless be a good thing, no?

Does anyone disagree?! I’d be interested to hear arguments against because I can’t really think of any and that makes me suspicious I’m being narrow minded.

Then if you don't want to verify your age by whichever method is being requested, you can instead choose not to access the website. Same as if you didn't want to show your ID in a shop or a bar.

It's not just porn though

Technically even Facebook should have these checks. Spotify, YouTube, Discord... all are being hit

Sites people need to use to work

And it's still not the same as showing ID in a shop

You can argue the aim is coming from a good place, however the implementation and technology is completely flawed, can easily be bypassed with VPN, and also pushes both adults and children to more dodgy sites (dark web) which contain more harmful material which is not controlled, where content can be monitored and used to potentially blackmail people.

OR you bypass the controls with VPN, or find more dodgy content on less controlled websites...

Easy to use, but now everything you browse is being stored/tracked and linked to you mobile number, are you happy for this information to be potentially leaked in the future??

I was unable to access an alcohol support site for the same reason.

I said that support groups would be affected and people said I was wrong because they didn't "promote or glorify"

And yet

I feel quite unsettled by it strangely.
I think it's a bit of a gimmick and won't actually stop teens watching porn.. but I think it's also a massive privacy issue and overstep of the government.
Ordinary parental controls and safe searches that parents can put on their computers should be enough.
I feel like this move is invasive.. what next?
I also worry about how pornography is defined. Some art and general scientific information may be at risk of being unnecessarily censored.
I also feel like there's a creeping wave of puritanism coming across from the Trump administration that will do no one anywhere any real good.
I personally err on the side of more comprehensive sex education in schools earlier.
I don't think porn can be eradicated and the more it's repressed the weirder and more extreme it gets.
It's a reflection of the wider culture. A symptom not a cause. I don't think the real problems of objectification and misogyny are actually being addressed. Seems just like a sticking plaster to keep certain sections of society happy.
No I don't agree with it.

Genuine question: do you still believe that this law is about age checks for porn?

To get you started in answering the question, here's the handy short version of the risk assessment guidance:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/online-safety/information-for-industry/illegal-harms/risk-assessment-guidance-and-risk-profiles.pdf?v=390984

It's only 84 pages, so shouldn't take you too long to get through. A good exercise for answering the question would be to consider how often it mentions legal adult-only content.

I don’t know if this is actually the case given that I was in Private browser mode. But even if it is the case surely it could have been done before given that I have a contract with an ISP and mobile company which has all that information on it already and always has had?

sigh

No. The session you had on the porn site is now linked to the session at the age-check provider, which holds your phone number. This is held in their databases, not your cookies, so a private browser session is irrelevant.

What you don't know is what the commercial arrangement is between those two companies regarding data sharing (ie how much of the age check data the porn site has access to), or how long either dataset is held for.

None of this information would have been given before - the porn site wouldn't have had access to any of it.

That means that there now potentially exists a log of your phone number against all the pages you looked at in that session on the porn site. This potential was impossible prior to this law coming in, unless (for some reason) you volunteered your phone number to the porn site - which I'm assuming you wouldn't have been mad enough to do.

So now, in the age of new sites losing control of their data every day, you have to ask: how comfortable are you with that log being released and made public, and subsequently linked to your name via public information (the link with your phone number)?

I've made it 5 pages in before giving up on the absolutely bullshit and convoluted speech going on

It doesn't make sense

Yeah, I know. It's the very definition of "written by committee". I've had to wade through over 1000 pages of that rubbish, and I know that I'm missing at least 30% of it because I just ran out of energy.

Where are you all seeing these age verification prompts? I've not encountered a single one yet. Seems like people are making a lot of fuss over nothing.

Your mobile phone company and ISP are on UK soil. They are regulated, subject to UK / EU law and variety of other regulations around how they store, share, sell and use your data. Your data remains here.

The companies you are handing over age verification info to are offshore with no such safeguards. Ofcom have written guidelines which no one in say, USA, will adhere to when your data is on their soil. See the Patriot Act.

My friend was recently refused access to the USA while travelling to see her fiance's family - held in detention for 24 hours at LAX, interrogated, flown back to UK and banned for 10 years.

For what crime? Because they had evidence that she worked as a sex worker in the UK about 5 years previously. They got that evidence by harvesting data from the web. Do you think homeland security waving photos of her in front of her face, found on an escort website, along with the ID she provided them 5 years previously to verify, adhered to GDPR?

Please stop handing over sensitivite ID data to offshore entities.

Literally go to any porn site from a UK IP address... Red tube, porn hub etc

Fitness forums, including one which displays bodies and shows people the difference between what natural strength training and using steroids looks like. They also expose fake Instagram influencers who take tren, anavar etc and sell crap training programs on the back of their fake natty status. People who follow them then cannot get those results and turn to chenical assistance to start to resemble what now appears normal to them. Mostly though the forum will educate on the terrible long term and often permanent side effects of gym drugs. It's a very valuable resource and should be seen ESPECIALLY by teens, so many of whom are fucking up their bodies before they are fully formed on these powerful, chemistry altering drugs.

Now the UK government says no, gotta upload your credit card details or personal info to a dodgy third party site. Not a chance.

Do you know exactly where your data is going, even on Mumsnet? Please list all the places Mumsnet has sent your data...

Mumsnet don't know who I am. They don't have a face scan, or my ID. All they have is a dynamic IP address.

How utterly depraved.

I am so, so sorry this happened to your friend.

Considering I've blocked over 20000 trackers on mumsnet, your data is going all over the Web from here

She is one of many this has happened to in the SW community over the last 2-3 years. There are other references to it online and on X.

Will access to USA ever be decided based on other internet-use profiling? It's conceivable to me that it could happen. And of course, it's not just the USA, but I am singling them out as they seem particularly egregious and their data centres are likely where a lot of UK verification data is heading.

Discord, Reddit, art forums...

MN have a throw away email address and that's it. I have ad blockers and VPN too

Thats really unfair. My DS was shown porn of the first time at school by mate who had downloaded it onto his phone. I had already blocked it years before at the router and DS phone when he got one but at the time porn on Reddit got around that block. My DS was obviously told about that work around and started watching in the loo.

So please don’t say it’s all up to the parents. I did everything I possibly could to block my DS getting access to porn and he still got it. It’s up to the tech giants to do their bit!