The UK has updated age verification rules to prevent children from accessing porn sites, and is proposing the use of artificial intelligence, among other things.
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The legal age for viewing porn in Britain is 18+. However, as reported by Reuters, citing research from the Office of the Children's Commissioner for England for 2021-2022, on average children first see online pornography at 13 years old, while almost a quarter encounter it before the age of 11, and one in ten children age 9 years.
“Regardless of the approach, we expect all services to provide strong protections for children from pornography, and to ensure that adults' privacy rights and freedoms to access legal content are protected,” she said CEO of media regulator Ofcom Melanie Dawes.
Artificial intelligence will reportedly be able to estimate age based on a user's facial features. However, to do this you will need to take a selfie and upload it to the site, which will not please privacy enthusiasts very much. As well as other methods including checking through a bank, or uploading a photo ID (passport or driver's license) with credit card verification.
The regulator said more privacy-friendly methods such as self-verification of age or online payment or warning notices no longer meet age verification standards.
Ofcom will publish final recommendations in early 2025.
A similar law requiring age verification on porn sites by providing identification is already in effect in several US states – including Louisiana, where Pornhub site traffic fell by 80% after the rules were put into effect, and the owners decided block it altogether.