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Porn Site xHamster: »Influencing How Young People Understand Relationships, Sex and Consensus«
Photo: Annette Riedl / dpa
The British government wants to make age verification compulsory again for access to porn websites in Great Britain.
This was announced by the ministry responsible for the media on Tuesday.
If operators do not implement the planned requirements, fines of up to ten percent of their worldwide turnover, a blocking of the pages in Great Britain or even criminal consequences for those responsible are threatened.
“It's too easy for children to access pornography online.
Parents deserve to be confident that their children are protected from seeing things that no child should see," Digital Secretary Chris Philp said in a statement.
It also says there is “a widespread concern” that pornographic content “is influencing how young people understand relationships, sex and consent.
Half of parents worry that online pornography gives their children an unrealistic view of sex, and more than half of mothers worry that the content gives their children a bad view of women."
Exactly how the age verification is carried out should be left open in the planned legislation.
It is conceivable that data from mobile phone contracts, credit cards or passports could be queried, the statement said.
Compliance is to be monitored by the media regulator Ofcom.
However, data that is not necessary to determine age should not be processed or stored.
The rule is to become part of the planned »Online Safety Bill«.
Already in 2015, the Conservative Party had announced a corresponding age verification in the British election campaign.
However, it was never implemented, and the government dropped its plans in 2019, partly because the intended access hurdles would have been easy to circumvent.
In addition, the government had failed to inform the European Commission in good time about important parts of the plan, as it should have done.
pbe/dpa
