PornHub, RedTube, Others to Implement New Age Verification System in UK

Megalith

Megalith

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Thanks to the new Digital Economy Act, UK citizens will have to confirm their age using a verification system dubbed “AgeID” before being able to browse adult sites. The system was developed by Pornhub’s parent company Mindgeek and will work across multiple sites after initial registration. Any sites that do not comply will see fines of over $300,000.

The software will make use of various third-party age verification companies to achieve its ends, covering methods that will use a viewer's passport, driving license, SMS and credit card. Though AgeID promises that they will only keep the core data required and will not store any sensitive information, privacy activists are concerned with the amount of leeway the government is giving a single private company.
 
How does "hide your ip address" make you appear older? Or do you mean appear to just come from a non-uk country...?

If you can purchase a vpn service, don't you generally have a crediti card anyhow & are therefore old enough to view "age restricted" sites?
 
I already use a VPN, so as it stands this will not affect me, there is no way I would use things like a passport / driving licence to verify my age to some dodgy p0rn verification service.
 
/dev/null said:
How does "hide your ip address" make you appear older? Or do you mean appear to just come from a non-uk country...?

If you can purchase a vpn service, don't you generally have a crediti card anyhow & are therefore old enough to view "age restricted" sites?
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the issue comes is now a porn company has your personal info, not something most people want. And with these laws, how easy will it be for agency to request user data from the porn sites to verify people who registered and now suddenly the government knows you have some fetish cause of the info mindgeek hands over..
 
MrGuvernment said:
the issue comes is now a porn company has your personal info, not something most people want. And with these laws, how easy will it be for agency to request user data from the porn sites to verify people who registered and now suddenly the government knows you have some fetish cause of the info mindgeek hands over..
Click to expand...

I kind of feel the same about VPN companies, personally..
 
I remain opposed to this on principle alone for several reasons. I think the "You're above your nation's age of porn majority right? Check yes/no, and/or input your birthdate which will NOT be stored and we frankly don't care if it is 1/1/1900" is enough for legal purposes - establishing that the site advertised that adult-oriented content was coming. If kids lie (and they do), that isn't really a problem for the site - it should be a problem for the parents! Its up to the parents to, just like with TV and games, monitor their Internet usage however they see fit for that particular child.

However, I feel that what's happening here with an "AgeID" is a major threat to privacy and needlessly means another private entity gathering even more information on users. Having to use some sort of personally identifiable information to prove your age, bound to some sort of verifiable data much less financial and gov't provided IDs, is asinine and draconian - especially for the laughable notion of granting access to porn. Worse, even if perfectly anonymized (which we know won't happen), it could still be socially weaponized - think of how many sex-negative groups on both sides of the political spectrum would come out to say "Look at these X number of verified adults who are soliciting access to and/or creation of pornography! And look at the most prominent keywords they're searching for, Q, W, and Z which prove they're degenerates!" I don't even need to mention how any leaks in anonymization could be used for blackmail which will be sought and exploited.

Perhaps worst of all this is all being handled by a private, for profit entity (or an arm thereof) which means that everything from privacy to security will go by the wayside when the data can be extrapolated, monetized, and sold. IF this kind of thing was necessary for something far more deserving than porn access, I would rather see it in the hands of a public, gov't created organization without a profit motive and - if nothing else - people will be (rightly or wrongly) more likely to scrutinize the behavior of governments with their data and privacy, than private corporations - despite the fact it should be the other way around. No matter who was in charge of it however, it is basically setting up an information security nightmare. Porn sites are known for hosting the worst in ads and malware and being open to many vulnerabilities etc... so telling all the blackhats that every porn site basically has a passthrough by which tons of real world, high value identity documents are validated makes for a delicious target. Sure, putting any personal data online for any reason is a risk, but when it comes to connecting to a government website directly, a financial institution, or those healthcare related (when it is actually necessary) there are additional rulesets added to ensure compliance and try to provide additional privacy and security. The idea of havign to play "papers, please!" in order to gain access to porn is by comparison ludicrous on multiple levels.

Really, I think the UK has much more to worry about right now and hopefully the political winds will shift - perhaps a Labor government will overturn this kind of nonsense before implementation.
 
It will be busted in a week or two so I'm not concerned.

In fact it's just been put back to the end of the year!

Will be dropped and forgotten most possibly.
 
/dev/null said:
I kind of feel the same about VPN companies, personally..
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As do I , most VPN companies are not anonymous nor as safe as they claim. It would also not surprise me if many of the big VPN companies are owned or backed by ISP's.
 
why does it matter. let the parents monitor and block there internet as they deem fit. And if im not mistaken the age of consent is 16 in the uk so aperently is just fine to have sex but oh no! better not let a 16 year old watch a video of it...
 
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