UK age checks

[Fred]

From July 25th websites that allow pornography or harmful content must ask for proof of age from UK visitors, this can only be done by asking for personal details along with proof such as.

• Facial age estimation – you show your face via photo or video, and technology analyses it to estimate your age. 
  
• Open banking – you give permission for the age-check service to securely access information from your bank about whether you are over 18. The age-check service then confirms this with the site or app.
  
• Digital identity services – these include digital identity wallets, which can securely store and share information which proves your age in a digital format.
  
• Credit card age checks – you provide your credit card details and a payment processor checks if the card is valid. As you must be over 18 to obtain a credit card this shows you are over 18.
  
• Email-based age estimation – you provide your email address, and technology analyses other online services where it has been used – such as banking or utility providers - to estimate your age.  
  
• Mobile network operator age checks – you give your permission for an age-check service to confirm whether or not your mobile phone number has age filters applied to it. If there are no restrictions, this confirms you are over 18. 
  
• Photo-ID matching – this is similar to a check when you show a document. For example, you upload an image of a document that shows your face and age, and an image of yourself at the same time – these are compared to confirm if the document is yours. 
  

Psoriasis Club does not allow pornography or harmful content, but I want to make sure I am in compliance so I have completed their on-line questioner and they have confirmed I do not need to comply.

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Fred.

[Caroline]

I did not know that British Government were so limiting… I guess VPN services will grow very fast now.
Personally I don’t care about pornography. People must know by themselves if they make is and if they look at it.

I do understand that viewing of pornography by little children or children should not be done. But … I suspect that this law is not going to work. In many cases children are soooo smart with computers, there is no government that can stop them.
Also I suspect that a lot of people will not be happy to use their identity when surfing to a porn site. It feels like the opposite of the GDPR rules, the protection of the privacy of people.

Anyway… indeed psoriasisclub is absolutely porn-free.

[Fred]

They tried a similar thing here in France, but they found out it was against EU rules on privacy. The EU are currently working on a system "EU Age Verification Solution"

Quote:

---

The European Commission is defining a common EU-wide approach to age verification and delivering a white label solution to support its practical adoption across Member States.

This privacy-preserving solution allows users to prove they are old enough to access age-restricted online services, without disclosing unnecessary personal information. It is built on the European Digital Identity Wallet framework and supports compliance with Article 28 of the Digital Services Act.

The goal is to enable consistent, secure and user-friendly age verification that can be easily integrated into online services throughout the EU.

That sounds like a better approach, in France we already have FranceConnect which is a solution proposed and run by the State to secure and simplify the connection to more than 1400 services on line so they could simply use that. But a one time register would get you in all adult sites, bank, alcohol, gambling, porn, 18+ gaming etc.

Yes we have to protect children but like you said they will find ways around it "tell a child not to do something and they will" also I think it will only make the children go to underground unregulated sites which is worse.

Also protecting them against harm is good, but if I was challenged as a child to put a back over my head to see how long I can last I would have said no. Children need to learn that someone telling you to put your head in the fire is not a good thing. 

To me the UK thing is just about getting peoples personal information, it won't protect children and yes VPN use will go up.

[mataribot]

Is it really about the children or more or less about censorship? I don’t see this law preventing teenagers from viewing suspicious stuff on the internet. In my opinion the law is written so vaguely they censor just about anything.

[Caroline]

Is it really about the children or more or less about censorship? I don’t see this law preventing teenagers from viewing suspicious stuff on the internet. In my opinion the law is written so vaguely they censor just about anything.

I don’t even think that it is about censorship, it really is about “control”, the knowing of what everyone is doing on the internet. The same kind of control that you get by means of traffic camera’s.
Control is essential for the powers that are leading now. You see that extremely in China, and you also can see what is happening in the US, see the recent post of Forest.
“Protecting the youngsters” or “Childporn” is just the handle they are using for their actions.