UNITED KINGDOM — A group of age verification technology providers has launched legal action to require the U.K. government to reverse its decision to abandon a law requiring age checks for adult websites.
The claimants include AgeChecked, AVSecure, AVyourself and VeriMe.
The suit is receiving support from a wide range of stakeholders, including the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety (CCCIS), which includes the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), Barnardo’s children's charity and the Children’s Society.
"If a judicial review is the only way of getting better protection for [minors], then we are all in favor but it should never have come to this,” explained John Carr OBE, Secretary of the CCCIS. “Everything was in place and ready to go. [Minors] who could have been protected from truly horrific sexual images will instead be exposed to them. That cannot be right.”
The AV law was passed by Parliament as part of the Digital Economy Act in 2017 and was to come into force by Easter 2018. It was first delayed until July 2019, and then a further delay was announced after the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) failed to complete European Union processes required for new regulations.
The aim of the new law was to protect [minors] from stumbling across adult-oriented material online through AV checks on all adult websites accessible to the U.K.’s internet users. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) was appointed as a regulator.
The legal action launched today is asking a High Court judge to instruct the government to implement the new law. The case argues that while the Secretary of State for Culture was given the discretion to decide on when to introduce the law, she did not have the legal authority to simply ignore the law and abandon it altogether.
“It has been enormously frustrating to know that AgeChecked and others have had independent, secure and anonymous AV systems ready-to-go for over a year now, only to be face years of delay before the child protection measures Parliament requires are brought into effect,” CEO Alastair Graham said. “Through this action, we are asking the government to rethink its timescale, and work with the AV industry to implement this within months, not years, using the legislation that is already on the statute book.”
AVSecure CMO Stephen Winyard echoed Graham's concerns.
“We were ready. The adult industry was heavily engaged and implementing age verification. The BBFC was ready,” he said. “The decision to abandon the Digital Economy Act Part Three was outrageous and millions of children are once again still easily able to access hardcore pornography online.”
The U.K. leads the world in developing age checking technology, with other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Poland and the United States among the countries studying the approach developed by the U.K., where thousands of age-checks are undertaken every week for online purchases of alcohol and tobacco, or for access to gambling websites.
“We encourage the government to think again and bring back the well-thought-out and effective law that not only has Royal Assent but the support of parents all over the U.K.,” Winyard concluded.