Government’s Ineffective UK ISP Internet Porn Ban Coming April 2019
No, it’s not an early April Fools. Instead April is officially the month when the government’s new age verification system – targeted at commercial websites and “apps” that contain pornographic content – comes into force. Broadband ISPs will also be required to block sites that fail to comply with the new rules.
At present all of the major ISPs should already be giving their subscribers a choice over whether or not to block adult content via their network-level Parental Controls, which is very useful if you have children. Despite this the Digital Economy Act 2017 (summary) went one step further by forcing an age-verification system upon ‘commercial’ websites that contain pornographic content.
Under this approach the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), which has been handed the responsibility of regulating all this (predicted to cost them around £4.4m), gains the power to force broadband ISPs and mobile network operators into blocking commercial pornographic websites and apps that fail to put “tough age [18+] verification measures” in place.
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Sadly no judicial oversight to help prevent against poor censorship decisions appears to exist and the law allows the blocking of “material other than the offending material” (over-blocking here we come). Crucially all of this has just been marked as “fit for purpose” by the Regulatory Policy Committee (RPC), which effectively means that it can proceed despite plenty of flaws and unknowns in its design.
Baroness Shields, UK Minister for Internet Safety, said in 2018:
“We will help make sure children aren’t exposed to harmful sexualised content online by requiring age verification for access to commercial sites containing pornographic material.
Just as we do in the offline world, we want to make sure that online content that is only suitable for adults is not freely accessible to children.”
However, leaving aside the obvious debate about making the internet a safer place for children, the government still hasn’t clarified precisely how the age verification system will actually work and in any case it’s only likely to be effective at hindering casual access (i.e. there’s not much that they can do to stop tech-savvy users from simply circumventing it). But those aren’t the only concerns.
Sadly nobody knows quite how to make an accurate Age Verification system online, at least not without forcing people to share their private personal and or financial details, often with unreliable porn peddlers. The infamous ‘Ashley Madison‘ hack has already highlighted just how dangerous such information could be in the wrong hands (multiple cases of blackmail and suicide etc.).
For example, MindGeek, which runs major sites like PornHub, YouPorn and RedTube, has previously proposed to use a mix of credit card, mobile SMS, passport or driving licence based identification through their AgeID system to manage the process; this will also be licensed out to other sites (i.e. one-click verification across many sites).
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However some fear that the AgeID approach could disadvantage those using other solutions that would require the user to re-verify and there are concerns about the lack of solid privacy safeguards involved.
Elsewhere around 60,000 shops are expected to offer Age Verification Cards, which will embarrassingly be based on some form of vague shopkeeper’s assessment. Fun, we can see lots of people using that.
Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, said:
“The BBFC will struggle to ensure that Age Verification is safe, secure and anonymous. They are powerless to ensure people’s privacy.
While BBFC say they will only block a few large sites that don’t use AV, there are tens of thousands of porn sites. Once MPs work out that AV is failing to make porn inaccessible, some will demand that more and more sites are blocked. BBFC will be pushed to block ever larger numbers of websites.”
Meanwhile last year’s Impact Assessment for all this estimated that “large” ISPs could each expect to incur costs of between £100,000 to £500,000 to update their systems in order to block non-compliant websites (this assumes a block of up to 50 sites per year at “DNS level“).
Obviously big ISPs can deal with such a cost, not least because they’ve already got similar systems in place, but smaller providers may struggle. Judging by their responses, most of the smallest providers that we asked last year still weren’t sure what the government actually expected (MPs do not appear to have consulted them much or at all) or even if they’d be included.
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The government’s guidance does state that the regulator should take into consideration the number and type of customers the ISP has (i.e. how many residential users) before issuing an order and sources indicate that, unofficially, they may only be looking at providers with 100,000+ residential broadband subscribers. One top of that it’s already been indicated that simple DNS blocking should suffice.
Not that this matters, ISP-level blocking of any type is merely a placebo, the equivalent of leaving a door wide open with the words “do not enter” stuck outside. This is not the fault of ISPs and merely reflects how the internet functions. Anybody who wants to access such content will easily be able to circumvent any blocks by using various Virtual Private Network (VPN) or Proxy Servers, which only require basic knowledge (background).
Likewise there’s still a big question mark over mission creep and where the line will be drawn on the definition of such content, with naughty pictures also appearing on many sites other than those that are dedicated toward peddling porn (e.g. Google Image Search). At least initially the focus is likely to be on the biggest distributors but, as warned above, in time that could evolve.
Lest we forget that there may also be some unintended consequences, such as forcing those who work in the adult industry into more dangerous situations by impeding their ability to advertise safely on the internet (back to curb crawling outside your house etc.) or blocking sites that merely talk frankly about sex / sexual health, or which provide related advice.
In the meantime the only fool-proof way to completely stop all access to such content is to physically disable your internet connection. In addition, the Government is understood to have set aside £10m in order to fend off any legal battles related to the new measures.
Government Guidance on Age Verification & Blocking
https://www.gov.uk/../Guidance_Age-Verification.pdf
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I’m sure it will go just as smoothly as Brexit.
I’m not giving any personal details to porn sites, this is just censorship, people should not suffer because some parents are not responsible.
Thank you parents should learn to be more responsible and watch there children online all this internet censorship its discusting
I will go back to the to buying fhm mag. Ultimate soft porn but better than having my bank wiped clean ha ha
use a VPN. It’s not some fancy thing that you have to be a NASA employee to understand. They’re easier to use than a microwave.
This legislation won’t survive a legal challenge but it will probably take years to come to be settled.
It won’t stop at porn – political censorship is on the way. Criticising political orthodoxy is labelled “hate speech” or “fake news”. Canada has already started and is planning to go further – see Rebel Media. Sweden prosecutes people who accurately describe rioters.
I agree.
Seems like the normal mess our government and civil servants create. Not surprised by this at all. And no one will get into trouble for blocking simple sites that have nothing to do with porn due to flawed broken unworkable policies.
But this is the British we’ll have no porn here…..
Don’t, blame civil servants, they only do what the morons you elect tell them to.
Government and civil servants are becoming increasingly out of touch. Most kids can bypass anything they try to do. Guess it will probably fox a few elderly perverts though. Especially if they work for the government.
Viewing pornography does not make someone a ‘pervert’ by default. No need to be so methodist.
Some perverse stuff out there for everyone taste but most people’s tastes are relatively mundane, which is why the perverse stuff is perverse not normal 🙂
I agree Chris.
CarlT, Come on, you can’t possibly know what most peoples tastes are. Don’t talk tosh.
I don’t but the people making the stuff do which is presumably why much of their content is fairly mundane – that’s what’s demanded of them.
Still if you want to claim that I am talking tosh when I say that not everyone watching pornography is a pervert that’s fine. I suppose it depends on your definition of what perversion is and how open-minded, or not, a person may be.
Definition of pervert: a person whose sexual behaviour is regarded as abnormal
Number of men that watch porn regularly. 75%. Number of women that watch porn regularly, 55%
By definition, you are perverted if you don’t watch porn.
The real question is whether cooperating adult sites will blanket AgeID all UK IP’s (inc. UK VPN locations) or just IP’s from residential ISP’s.
Crazy porn ban so messed up country you could actually walk into track and purchase a knife without ID.
Hmm. Depends on the knife.
https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives
This ban perfectly demonstrates the stupidity of the government. Handing out a placebo effect does nothing to protect kids. You can’t 100% police the internet like they think you can. It will be laughably easy to either work around the block or use sites that are not blocked. Everyone in their right mind knows that.
Educating kids is what’s needed but no lets not have a solution that actually works, much better an inappropriate, inefective, expensive one instead.
How do you educate kids not to watch porn? Hormones kick in by 12 or 13. How can we educate away one of the basic human instincts?
Even if this did work (it won’t, let’s not delude ourselves), children still have bodies of their own…
So if all this does is increase the chances of children exposing their naked bodies to each other… then what?
Ban bodies?
Nah it’ll just mean a boom in teenage pregnancies which the state will be taxed extra to pay for… mind you maybe that’ll stop the madness of claims of sexual abuse when a man puts his hand on a women’s shoulder?
Or maybe we’ll see an upsurge in vintage pornographic magazine sales?
Come on folks. Porn is the only thing British politicians can agree on. They know all about it.
Unlike anything else.
Time for a VPN
The Internet is doomed lol.
So, when the BBFC realise they are fighting a losing battle they will return to the ‘possibly new’ government saying they can’t do it.
At that point the government will force all ISP’s to issue their own Routers to customers with Adult filtering on and enforced with a 500-bit password. Any customer who attempts to connect to the ISP using their own ‘unlocked’ equipment or invokes the use of a VPN, Public Proxy, Tor or….. will be banned for life.
In no time the Newsagents top shelves will be filled with a variety of publications again… we’ll be back to the 70’s, 80’s UK in no time :).
Still, give it a go, that’s the spirit, no harm in at least trying to fill a 2-mile-wide crater with a trowel and a little cement…
I expect age verification will become the default option for social media (MPs hate it) & eventually all internet access. I also expect if article 13 of the European Copyright Directive passes that anything uploaded to the internet will be subjected to copyright checks (but with mission creep it could include anything like keywords). I think it is a false belief that the internet is “too big” to censor. You just overblock. I also believe that people will increasingly turn to VPNs & the dark web more & more. Also more decentralized sites like Bitchute could become more popular.
We’re now approaching mid-February, and there’s been nothing else reported on it. Not even the websites themselves have tweeted anything about this ban to UK users, yet it’s a month and a half away.
Apparently, in terms of viewers from countries, the UK is second when viewing Pornhub. I don’t expect MindGeek to sit back and lose millions of views because of some dinosaurs in Westminster.
Also, consider that programmes like Love Island are happy to show couples having sex, but softcore movies aren’t acceptable?
This whole idea should be binned.
We’re just weeks away from this and the government has STILL not clarified a thousand questions asked. What is considered “commercial”? Are bloggers commercial if they have an ad or sell a product? Are all adult bloggers and affiliates now going to be included in this draconian scheme?
I run several blogs, they’re all based on US servers, so how does that affect me? Does it depend on my nationality or where the site is hosted?
What about VPN use?
Once again, these moronic old folks who don’t know the difference between an ISP and a modem are making insanely stupid decisions on behalf of ignorant parents who are too lazy to do their own damn job of raising their kids and expect the world to change to do it for them.
We all agree that kids should not be viewing this stuff, but none of this will work in the way holding parents accountable for actually raising their kids would.
“making insanely stupid decisions on behalf of ignorant parents who are too lazy to do their own damn job of raising their kids and expect the world to change to do it for them.”
This!!
Hell even the simple parental controls on Windows 8 did the job for me. Easily setting the age level and time limits on the kids accounts and sending me a report of their activity each week. This report helped start a few constructive and targeted conversations with them.
ISPs were supposed to ask if we want our connections unlocked for adult content, neither my home or business ISPs have asked, they are just unlocked by default. But they are not being forced to comply with this law because they have a far more easily manipulated law to use. Next step will probably be selling “additional services”, just like the monitoring system that was supposed to be built into all new cars in Europe, but hasn’t happened yet.
Knowing this shower of s**t, something as simple as a Firefox addon to change the IP might be enough. If not, looks like a VPN for me.
It is really curious how quite this legislation has gone, is it just overshadowed with the Brexit debacle?
I’ve just read a funny story about a Head Marketing for a UK ISP (I won’t mention any names).
He was using a motorcycle forum to upload and show off his porn collection, obviously trying to impress his mates.
Unfortunately, he’d forgotten that some time earlier he’d used the same forum to brag about his job title and gave a link to his company’s website.
Oppps, a bit embarrassing!
The World’s first government issued Wanking Licence.
“Licence to Wank”. Sounds like a Bond film. Kind of!
Ironically the only people who will be blocked are the older generation who can’t comprehend what a vpn is.
Clowns running this country.
Best comment ever.
Like this will work. Done in the same vain as the bedroom tax. Utter nonsense that is destined to fail. Sure blame content creators for content kids see. Instead of their irresponsible parents. Shouldn’t devices come with parenting tools to regulate what one will allow their kids to see? This will fall flat on it’s face in no time. Especially since the useless government hasn’t thought this through. Never mind the fact that their priorities are skewed. Aren’t there bigger more important issues than wasting tax payers money? In between £100,000 and £500,000 per year to maintain. And also £10,000,000 in case of lawsuit. Which wont be enough and will more likely put this country in deeper debt. If prohibition which was more strict in USA failed. Why will this be any different?
They don’t care about the kids, it’s about normalizing censorship.
To quote someone ‘porn is the canary in the cage for other censorship. it’s the first thing to get banned before other things get banned’. This is to test how far the Tories can censor freedom of speech. Trust me, they’ll be censoring other things. Remember the media blackouts under Cameron.
According to the Government study (which they ignored) children are being exposed to porn not from Pornsites but from Facebook, Twitter and Google (who give money othe Torie government in the form of donations!?!) and get tax breaks.
If you think the Tories are bad, imagine how bad it will be if all these school-teacher types from Lab/Lib/Green get in again. They want to ban men from even thinking about women as sexual objects, while actively encouraging gays to do whatever they want.
They are all bad, all supporting this idea of one world order and profiting through other peoples misery based on either captialism and socialism and the same 2 moronic partys responcible for destroying this country have fought for leadership for over 100 years. We’ve never had a different leading party beside labour or tory. Over 100 years, check your history, labour and tory. It’s time for a change in leadership, time for a new party and it shouldnt be these 2.
Children should be playing with toys! End of! Leave the internet to the grown ups please!
Thank god for the Tor Browser which no doubt will be the most popular browser to avoid this crap through vpn proxy. 🙂
Teen pregnancy is gonna riseeeeee
all the people too stupid to vpn are gonna resort to rape