Getty Images

After the UK's planned introduction of a porn block was delayed in March, there are finally some more details on how the controversial system may actually work.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has published its draft guidelines for the regulation of the age-verification requirement for all pornographic websites. The changes are being introduced by the government to keep children from viewing pornography.


Later this year, the BBFC will be extending its existing role in film classification to take responsibility for the regulation of all pornography that's available via the internet to persons in the UK. The new age verification guidelines, originally scheduled to have come into force in April 2017, will apply to everyone and anyone who makes money from online porn, anywhere in the world – those who don't meet the requirements will have to be blocked by UK ISPs.

Tech and internet lawyer Neil Brown, director of decoded:Legal describes these international restrictions as "a key part of the 'stick' to bring overseas sites into compliance, if they do not want to lose ... traffic from UK visitors."

Read next The web is drowning in Deepfakes and almost all of them are porn The web is drowning in Deepfakes and almost all of them are porn

While the regulations only extend to commercial porn, a very wide definition of 'commercial' is being used, which is likely to cover ad-funded free pornography and independent, donor-funded, pay-what-you-want porn, as well as more traditional pay-to-view commercial operations.

Adult classification

It'll be down to the BBFC to decide whether a company is flouting its requirement to have age-verification in place. Due to the sheer volume of porn on the internet, its investigations will prioritise factors such as how frequently the site is visited, whether children are among its regular visitors and whether it's had the kind of media attention that would cause under-18s in the UK to seek it out.


The body will also be responsible for monitoring and taking action against content that's illegal in the UK.

The BBFC will contact online porn publishers that aren't complying with the rules, and they'll either have to add age verification or be subject to a range of punishments. These include notifications to their payment processor that they're in breach of the law, notices to any "ancillary service provider" that provides them with internet services, civil legal action against them following an enforcement notice and measures to block access to the content from UK ISPs.

Responsibility for implementing age verification "rests at all times with the person that makes pornographic material available online", which means that it's porn site creators, rather than hosting firms, that will have to implement age-based content blocks.

Read next Tuesday briefing: Data breach "inevitable" under new UK porn registration laws - Open Rights Group Tuesday briefing: Data breach "inevitable" under new UK porn registration laws - Open Rights Group

Identity discrimination

While the guidelines don't go into specifics, the BBFC notes that "a range of solutions to age-verify online is currently available on UK-hosted pornography services", including "credit card, passport, driving licence and mobile phone age verification."


Depending on how the system is implemented, this could result in some people in the UK not having the right documents to prove their identity in order to access porn, even if they wanted to hand over their personal details in such an intimate context.

A passport, the gold standard of British identity documents, costs £72.50, which is a significant sum to people on low incomes. Credit cards can easily push people in unmanageable debt, while individuals whose lives have been disrupted by factors such illness, family breakdowns or homelessness may struggle to assemble any of the forms of paperwork commonly used to prove identity in the UK.

The guidelines specify that "age-verification systems must be designed with data protection in mind", and must tell users when, where, why, how and by whom their data is processed, must request only the minimum data required to verify a user's age, must retain it for no longer than is required to achieve the purpose of age verification, and must be able to facility the user's rights of access, erasure and rectification.

Verifiers will be obliged to follow new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, as Brown points out, "'but there’s a law' is very different to 'and we can guarantee that your data are protected'."

Read next The UK can't get enough of VR porn: viewing figures are up 250% from last year The UK can't get enough of VR porn: viewing figures are up 250% from last year

Impact on indies

While large porn publishers will be easily able to roll out the required changes, it's independent porn producers who potentially face the greatest challenges. Online porn giant Mindgeek, the parent company of sites including PornHub and RedTube, has told WIRED that it will offer its forthcoming AgeID system to UK-based independent porn producers free of charge. Others will have to pay for the service, and so far no details have been revealed of exactly how it'll work.

Whoever provides verification services, the responsibility for getting that blocking technology into place falls on individual porn publishers, and the chilling effect it could have on visitor numbers stands to most severely affect small businesses and independent workers.

Sex blogger Girl On The Net explains the potential impact: "I rely on income made through my site to pay my bills, so if my traffic drops significantly (as it inevitably will even if I manage to implement age verification, because plenty of people will understandably decide they don't want to hand over personal details to read a blog full of smut) then I'll effectively be out of a job. While it currently seems as if text-based pornography won't 'count' under the guidelines, I also make audio porn to try and increase site accessibility for visually impaired people, and it's possible that would be covered under the law too."

Social pornography

Adult content creators, especially those in already-marginalised groups – trans people, other LGBT+ folk, people of colour, disabled creators and people in poverty – have recently born the brunt of self-imposed content restrictions on platforms including crowdfunding sites Patreon and social media platform Tumblr.

For the purpose of the UK's porn block, social media, search engines, crowdfunding sites and other online platforms count as "ancillary service providers', these are covered by a dedicated set of draft guidelines and subject to fewer controls.

Read next Why there's no 'silver bullet' for ridding the web of revenge porn Why there's no 'silver bullet' for ridding the web of revenge porn

"They fall outside the scope of the obligation to have age verification in place, as they are not making pornography available on the internet but rather providing a platform for others to do so," Brown says. "The BBFC is empowered to send them a notice if their services are being used by pornographers who are not compliant with the Digital Economy Act — but there is no obligation on them to do anything as a result. It is expected that some ancillary service providers — payment processors — will take steps voluntarily, and I believe they have indicated a willingness to do so."

Pressure from a national regulator in combination with that willingness to act could easily prompt further content restrictions from platforms. Girl On The Net says: "We've already seen the financial impact on smaller pornographers of blocks and filtering of adult content on social media sites – adding age verification into the mix just makes life even harder for those of us who make a living off turning people on. "

All mouth and no trousers

In addition to the harm to independent creators and the potential risk of a breach in any system that could be involved in keeping bulk records of users' identities and – depending on how such systems are implemented and what data they record – sexual proclivities, an obvious problem with the UK government's proposed approach to state censorship is how easy it is to evade.

VPN services, including those with free tiers, such as Windscribe and TunnelBear, are readily available to both mobile and desktop internet users, who can use them to virtually relocate, via an encrypted tunnel, to a country with a less censorious attitude to adult content, such as the Netherlands.


And the government is aware of the situation. "The impact assessment for this part of the Act notes that this is the case, so I doubt anyone who has given it a moment’s thought sees it as anything more than a roadblock for the less technically enabled, even if/when site-blocking comes into play," Brown says.

There's nothing to stop under-18s from using such services, and any attempt to restrict VPN providers would represent an even more significant erosion of privacy rights and internet freedoms in the UK than even the present Digital Economy Act 2017.

Correction: 07/04/2018: This article has been updated to remove an inaccuracy in describing illegal content in the UK.