Children will be blocked from watching online porn under new laws forcing websites to get proof users are aged 18

Porn websites will require proof viewer is over 18 under new proposals

Legislation may be in place by the end of the year

One porn site alone was visited by 112,000 boys aged between 12 and 17



People who want to watch pornography will have to prove they are 18 under new Government proposals to stem children's exposure to online sex.

New laws are being drawn up that will force adults to prove their age with credit card details or other documents before they can access porn sites.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is also looking at ways to force overseas providers, such as the popular Luxembourg-based site Pornhub, to adopt similar controls.

A statement from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said: 'We are legislating to put R18 material that can only be sold in licensed sex shops behind access controls on video-on demand services.

New laws are being drawn up that will force adults to prove their age with credit card details or other documents before they can access porn sites in a bid to stop children seeing graphic images. File picture

'The same protections should apply online as offline and we are clarifying the law to make sure that is the case — we want the legislation to be in place by the end of the year. No decision has been made about offshore sites.'

Last year, following a Daily Mail campaign, internet providers including BT, TalkTalk and Sky agreed to install filters so parents could block access to unsuitable material on their home computers.



Rachel O'Connell, an adviser to the DCMS, says parents need all the help they can get to regulate their children's time online.



'It has become impossible and arguably unhealthy for a parent to monitor all aspects of their digital life,' she, t old the Sunday Times .

The proposals mirror those mooted last month by the Authority for Television on Demand said laws should be changed to protect children from seeing adult material on the internet.

It found that some five per cent of visitors to adult sites were under 18, and Pornhub alone was visited by 112,000 boys in the UK aged between 12 and 17 over the course of a month .

Credit card details: The proposals mirror those mooted last month by the Authority for Television on Demand said laws should be changed to protect children from seeing adult material on the internet.

The news about the Government plans comes soon after reports that one in four young people first view porn at age 12 or under, causing concern for parents.

Almost a quarter of young people were 12 years old or younger when they first saw porn online (24.6 per cent ) and 7.3 per cent were under 10, with the majority of young people (60 per cent) 14 years old or younger when they first saw porn online.

Of further concern to parents is that 62 per cent said they first saw it when they weren’t expecting to, or because they were shown it by someone else with only 22 per cent saying they were looking for it on purpose.