Earlier this year UK decided to create a bizarre rule to prevent teenagers from accessing online porn on the internet. The rule forced users to upload their IDs to pass the age verification test and stream porn online.
However, multiple sources are now reporting that UK has postponed the system indefinitely. Sky News (via The Verge) published an article citing unnamed sources who confirmed that Jeremy Wright, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport secretary, will announce the delay tomorrow in British Parliament. Apart from the obvious implementation issues, there were privacy concerns as well. The UK government hired Canadian porn company MindGeek to build the infrastructure but not everyone trusts them with their personal information. Not only that, but people are also concerned that this might make everyone who streams porn vulnerable as a slight leak could reveal their embarrassing porn habits. Moreover, security experts found that these age verifications can easily be bypassed using a VPN so it makes the whole system pointless.
Back in March, YouGov did a survey which found that 76% of the survey takers didn’t know about the age verification rules. Seeing all this, it’s good that the government has decided to postpone the implementation of the service. While the idea behind such a service was good, the UK government still has to perfect the implementation for maximum benefit.