Access to pornographic rated materials online is about to get a bit tighter for UK citizens. The government released a statement highlighting stringent measures and laws that are being put in place to ensure that only people of legal age can have access to online pornographic materials.
According to the press release, news laws guiding access to porn materials are expected to be in effect as early as middle part of August, 2018. This is to ensure that minors are no longer able to get access to online-based pornographic materials.
A Digital Economy Act is to be enforced and all pornographic website operators found to have gone contrary to this act are to be made to pay a hefty fee as penalty. This Act is supposed to ensure that porn sites install a digitalized age verification app on their sites so as to make sure that no minors get access to such adult materials.
In the year 2016, a study that was conducted by the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) revealed that almost 50 percent of minors aged less than sixteen years claimed to have had access to online pornographic materials. This is one area that Will Gardner, CEO of an internet safety charity known as Childnet, sees as being effectively dealt with due to the new Act that is about to be enforced. His views were made visibly clear when he said, “Protecting children from exposure, including accidental exposure, to adult content is incredibly important, given the effect it can have on young people.”
With Matt Hancock, Digital Minister having signed the order for work to commence, it is believed that the era of minors being able to get access to online pornographic materials, ticket scalpers, low quality subtitles for TV shows and poor internet services for rural areas will all be a thing of the past. The new act is expected to create a stronger, safer and well connected economic society. In Digital Minister Matt Hancock’s own words, “The Digital Economy Act is about building a strong, safe and connected economy. It will secure better support for consumers, better protection children on the internet, and underpin a radical transformation of the entertainment services.”
This is a law that is set to make any oversight by a pornographic website with regards to authentic age verification and ticket scalping a criminal thing.
