LONDON — A new law in Great Britain may force users accessing any porn sites to verify that they’re 18 years of age if a new government proposal is adopted.
Proposals are being drawn up that will require age verification by credit card or other documents, even for non-membership sites and foreign-based operators.
The regulations could be in effect by the end of the year.
The Daily Mail reported that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is especially targeting offshore sites like Pornhub and others in attempt to force them to adopt age check verification.
“We are legislating to put R18 material that can only be sold in licensed sex shops behind access controls on video-on demand services,” the Department said.
“The same protections should apply online as offline and we are clarifying the law to make sure that is the case — we want the legislation to be in place by the end of the year. No decision has been made about offshore sites."
Last month, the country's VOD regulator, ATVOD, also called for porn site regulation, hoping to enact a plan that would allow the agency to license sexually explicit sites, but only if they'd abide by an age check proviso.
