Delay on government enforcing pornography age checks

Plans to enforce age checks on accessing adult websites were due to come in this April but have been delayed for a public consultation period. 

Issues needing more thought include how to make sure leaks of users’ details, like those of the adultery site Ashley-Madision, are not repeated and to think about the best way to check someone’s age. 

A spokesperson for the department said: “”We need to take the time to make sure we get it right.”

However, explaining that the Government are still much further ahead in this area than other countries, Vivienne Pattison, a Christian and trustee of Media Watch UK who campaign for a safer internet, told Premier: “I’m really proud of the UK, it’s really leading the world on this one about protecting children in the online space – which great and that’s laudable – but this is a complicated thing which is why it is taking longer to come in than we thought.”

Describing what the checks would be like, Pattison explained: “These are the sort of checks a child, or indeed anybody anybody accessing a site, for example a gambling site, would come across.”

She explained though where the plans currently fail: “The sites that we’re talking about here are sites a that are offering paid content…what it doesn’t do it deal with protecting sites with free content – and that is an area that is growing hugely”

The checks would be enforced at either…