Young-looking porn users may face extra age-checkson December 5, 2023 at 12:18 am

Porn users could have their faces scanned to prove their age, with extra checks for young-looking adults, draft guidance from Ofcom suggests.

The watchdog has set out a number of ways explicit sites could prevent children from viewing pornography.

The average age children first view pornography is 13, a survey suggests.

But privacy campaigners have criticised the proposals warning of “catastrophic” consequences if data from age checks is leaked.

A large chunk of the UK population watch online pornography – nearly 14 million people, according to a recent report by Ofcom – and one in five of those watch it during office hours.

But the ease of access to online pornography has also raised concerns that children are viewing explicit websites – with one in ten children seeing it by age nine, according to a survey by the Children’s Commissioner.

The Online Safety Act, which recently became law, requires social media platforms and search engines to protect children from harmful content online.

It will be enforced by Ofcom, who can issue large fines if firms fail to comply.

Ofcom has outlined how it expects firms to comply with the new regulations when come into force sometime in 2025, saying age checks must be “highly effective at correctly determining whether or not a particular user is a child”.

Age checks will have to go well beyond simply clicking a button to self-declare you are an adult.

Acceptable methods could include:

Facial age-estimation tech, that will scan users’ faces and use software to infer if they are an adult, is also an option.

The regulator suggests that if the tech isn’t accurate enough on its own, websites could consider asking for additional checks if a person looks under a “challenge” age. That corresponds to the way many retailers work, asking for ID when selling alcohol to someone who looks under-25.

It is unlikely that any age assurance method will be impossible to circumvent, Ofcom notes, but websites must guard against simple tricks.

For systems that compare a photo ID such as a passport with a user’s face, for example, they should do a “liveness check” to guard against children who try to use borrowed or fake ID and a photo of someone older to fool the system.

Young adults involved in sex education told the BBC they believed having these kinds of protections in place would help prevent children being exposed to pornography.

Jack Liepa, director of the charity Sexpression, which sends university students into schools to run workshops about sex and relationships, said the Online Safety Act was a positive step.

But age-checks would not do away with the need for education about the ways pornography presented a distorted view of sex, objectified women and failed to raise the question of consent, Mr Liepa and other student volunteers with the charity told the BBC.

“Young people probably still will find ways to access this content: older siblings might provide access, and they’re still going to turn 18 and suddenly have access, at still quite a young impressionable age.

“So I don’t think we can take the act and suddenly think this issue is solved,” Mr Liepa said.

Others worry that some young people will visit riskier, unregulated sites to access pornography if they are blocked from accessing mainstream sites.

The biggest concern among porn-using adults about proving their age, is over the safety of their data, Ofcom says.

The draft guidance says sites must follow the data protection rules set out by privacy watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

But Abigail Burke of campaigning organisation, the Open Rights Group said there was not enough emphasis on keeping data safe.

“The potential consequences of data being leaked are catastrophic and could include blackmail, fraud, relationship damage, and the outing of people’s sexual preferences in very vulnerable circumstances,” she said.

It was “very concerning” that Ofcom was relying solely on data protection laws and the ICO to ensure that privacy was protected, Ms Burke said.

“Specific and clear privacy rules are needed, given the vast amount of sensitive data that will potentially be processed,” she told the BBC.

Draft codes of practice to cover pornography on social media platforms will be published in 2024.