{"id":5358,"date":"2014-04-17T03:24:49","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T03:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=5358"},"modified":"2014-04-14T11:16:54","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T10:16:54","slug":"tricky-question-censorship-age-verification-broadband-isps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/04\/tricky-question-censorship-age-verification-broadband-isps.html","title":{"rendered":"The Tricky Question of Censorship and Age Verification via Broadband ISPs"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more puzzling aspects of the on-going political debate over Internet censorship (Parental Controls) is the issue of Age Verification, which has some politicians aggressively calling for a system that can verify an Internet user\u2019s age before the ISPs network-level filters can be disabled. But is it even possible and do we really need it?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How do you identify somebodies age on the Internet? Nearly every website in the world would struggle to identify how old any of their visitors actually are, at least not with any real accuracy. Indeed it\u2019s difficult enough to know the real names of your readers, let alone how old they are.<\/p>\n

Websites are not passport agencies, they don\u2019t have access to your national insurance details, they can\u2019t see your photo IDs and in any case most wouldn’t want the massive cost and legal responsibility (privacy) that handling such a sensitive commodity tends to entail.<\/p>\n

So, for a website, the concept of Age Verification<\/strong> is always one of smoke and mirrors. You can ask a reader what their age is but you have no way of verifying whether what they say is true. As a result no government proposed solution, short of making all your personal data\u00a0easier to access for website operators (big privacy and cost implications), is going to solve that.<\/p>\n

Surely then, it\u2019s easier for the ISPs? Yes, but this is also precisely why Age Verification is actually a moot point for fixed line broadband providers.<\/p>\n

Fixed Line Internet Connection = Adult Owner<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

One of the most outspoken politicians on how ISPs handle Age Verification is undoubtedly Baroness Howe<\/strong> of Idlicote, a life peer whom earlier this year joined MP Claire Perry<\/strong> and others in criticising the method that some fixed line providers use in order to verify the account holders age.<\/p>\n

Baroness Howe said recently:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The current approach used by the industry involves sending the ISP account holder an email informing them that their filters have been disabled. This presents two problems. First, no age verification takes place before default filters are disabled. Second, it depends entirely on parents reading and acting on these ISP emails immediately.<\/em><\/p>\n

That this is hugely problematic is eloquently demonstrated by polling published by the charity CARE which demonstrates that one in six parents – approximately two million people \u2013 are simply unlikely to read emails from their ISPs. This could enable their children to download completely inappropriate adult content indefinitely. We need to require all ISPs to introduce robust age-verification of the person electing to disable default filters before filters are disabled<\/em>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It all sounds like fair comment, except many ISPs already have a rule that prohibits them from selling the service to minors (i.e. those under the age of 18), which means that generally only an adult will get access to the account password<\/strong> (most ISPs require this before you can change the filter settings) or be able to view the related ISP emails. The adult is then unlikely to share that info. with a young child.<\/p>\n

But if a child did manage to order a new broadband or phone service, all for themselves, then you’d probably notice the telecoms engineer, letters, bills and phone calls arriving as part of the setup or installation process. Of course if any of this\u00a0did go unnoticed then worrying about Internet Age Verification is probably going to be the least of your concerns.<\/p>\n

Adrian Kennard, Boss of AAISP, told Baroness Howe (here<\/a>):<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We do not sell to individuals under 18. We already ask anyone ordering to confirm that they are not under 18. Obviously if OFCOM<\/a> were to come up with some practical means to verify age on an on-line order we’d be more than happy to consider integrating such a system, but at present we feel it very unlikely that an under 18 could order. <\/em><\/p>\n

For our type of services it means having access to a phone line (without Internet already) in order to install equipment, or access to allow a phone line to be installed – both of which seem unlikely to go unnoticed by parents in a household. Our services are also unlikely to be cost effective for a minor to purchase<\/em>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, ignoring the fact that any child which actually wants to view adult content could easily find a way around such filters (VPN<\/strong>, Proxy Servers<\/strong> etc.) and many already do (here<\/a>), what other method could be adopted for Age Verification? Ideally without introducing some form of costly national ID system, perhaps requiring home retina or finger print scanners (privacy advocates will love that).
\n
\nInstead perhaps the web browser<\/strong> could make the request when you next re-connect with your ISP (DNS page hijack<\/strong>)? This is similar to how a lot of public wifi<\/a> hotspots work, but again no age verification would be necessary because you’d assume the account owner, whom presumably has all of the necessary security and financial details to hand, is already an adult.<\/p>\n

A more expensive solution might be for the ISP to call all of their customers individually, although this is sure to be an administrative and resource nightmare for the biggest providers and one that would move resources away from tackling real support issues.<\/p>\n

Not to mention that personally asking customers, assuming you can even tell that’s whom you’ve got on the line (children often also know the answers to common family security questions), whether or not they want to allow the viewing of pornography on the Internet might overstep some social bounds and make people feel bullied into a decision that might also\u00a0block access to other legitimate websites (dating, social networks etc.).<\/p>\n

So in reality Age Verification, on a fixed line connection, is a moot point because a system already exists (e.g. using the account owners password to enabled or disable the filters). Meanwhile most free public wifi<\/a> hotspots or pay-as-you-go Mobile Broadband connections already enable filtering by default and require Credit Card Verification<\/strong> (CVV) to disable, although it’s important to stress that not all adults have or are even allowed a credit card. Some credit cards can also be jointly held by a minor.<\/p>\n

A Different Perspective<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

At the same time we should perhaps be ready to question whether or not it’s right to be imposing filters on legal “adult<\/em>” content in the first place. The world we live in is a fundamentally “adult<\/em>” one, as any trip down a busy high street (e.g. people swearing) or through a modern clothing store (e.g. pictures of models in their underwear) will surely attest, and part of growing up is learning to cope with and understand that world. Education and good parenting is what pays off the most here.<\/p>\n

Others suggest that we should also perhaps be willing to explore the possibility that the whole concept of “adult content<\/em>“, such as legal pornography, being 18+ restricted<\/strong> might be out of\u00a0touch with reality. For example, by age 16 many children are already going to college, having sex and sometimes living on their own \/ with friends, which was happening long before the Internet.\u00a0Meanwhile boys in particular will have no trouble accessing the naughty stuff, be that on or offline. In short, the cat is out of the bag and it’s been sitting there for a very long time.<\/p>\n

Similarly the content being displayed on TV today, much of it coming before the so-called 9pm watershed<\/strong>, often appears to be considerably more violent and explicit than many of the categories that ISP-based network-level filters optionally target. Beauty products? Facebook (social networks)? Dating sites.. do we really need to stop\u00a0everybody below age 18+ from seeing those? Why are they even options in the first place? It seems some\u00a0parents really think\u00a0their children\u00a0can’t handle it, which might be true for the very young but this must also be\u00a0extremely insulting to those aged around 14-17.<\/p>\n

On the other hand it’s perfectly understandable for parents of much younger children (pre-teen) to seek better protection in order to shield them from viewing more mature content online. In that case it can be useful for ISPs to offer such an option, although free Parental Controls have also been available for years via various different methods. Forcing Internet providers to do all the leg lifting here just seems to be a bit on the lazy side.<\/p>\n

After all, if\u00a0somebody can’t do a simple Google search to find out how to enable Parental Controls on their computer then there are probably bigger concerns that need to be addressed first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more puzzling aspects of the on-going political debate over Internet censorship (Parental Controls) is the issue of Age Verification, which has some politicians aggressively calling for a system that can verify an Internet user\u2019s age before the ISPs network-level filters can be disabled. But is it even possible and do we really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[473,109,479],"class_list":["post-5358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial_article","tag-censorship","tag-internet-privacy","tag-security"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"yoast_head":"\nThe Tricky Question of Censorship and Age Verification via Broadband ISPs - ISPreview UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the more puzzling aspects of the on-going political debate over Internet censorship (Parental Controls) is the issue of Age Verification, which has\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/04\/tricky-question-censorship-age-verification-broadband-isps.html\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2014\/04\/tricky-question-censorship-age-verification-broadband-isps.html\/2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Tricky Question of Censorship and Age Verification via Broadband ISPs - 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