When Ioannis Dekas, a father of four boys, found that one of his sons had access to pornography, he and his wife became concerned.

德卡斯在英国广播公司（BBC）的一次采访中说：“在此刻的两个星期内，我们注意到他的行为发生了巨大的变化，”撤军，对他的兄弟姐妹的愤怒感，我们可以感觉到他的生活感到沮丧。”当这对夫妇与儿子交谈时，他们发现他的同龄人迫使他熟悉色情语言。

自那时候起，，，，he has been campaigning for the UK government to implement the “proof of age” access to pornography, covered by theDigital Economy Act (DEA) 2017。However, DEA 2017 suffered from a series of延误和修正，，，，before being abandoned entirely in October 2019.根据那时文化部长尼基·摩根（Nicky Morgan），政府希望专注于一项新法案，该法案将根据政府的规定保护儿童Online Harms White Paper。

摩根引用说：“这种行动将使监管机构的酌处权以最有效的公司履行照料义务的方式。”她还强调，政府将来仍然可以使用年龄验证工具。“政府对在线保护儿童的承诺是坚定的。成人内容太容易在线访问，需要做更多的事情来保护儿童免受伤害。”

Enter the Online Safety Bill

The Online Safety Bill，，，，which is touted as one of the UK government’s landmark bills, is poised, essentially, to regulate online content in the UK—global implications notwithstanding. It contains legislation that revives the plan to age-lock access to pornography by legally requiring porn sites to carry out age checks. This means that online porn users in the UK—estimated to be around 20-25 million people—would have to prove they are of legal age to view pornographic material by sharing their credit card to porn sites, or by having a third-party service confirm their legal age.

Ofcom, the regulator chosen by the UK government, will be able to fine porn sites up to 10% of their global earnings or block them from being accessed by anyone in the UK. The Online Safety Bill could also hold pornography site owners criminally liable for failing to follow the legislation.

截至撰写本文时，该法案已在草案中，但预计将在未来几个月内移交给议会。

许多儿童安全团体一直在要求对色情网站上的年龄验证进行监管，这是由于担心未成年人可以轻松访问它。他们有理由害怕。根据英国电影分类委员会在2020年的研究，一半的11至13岁的儿童（51％）看过色情。该报告还表明，七岁的孩子有时会偶然偶然发现色情片。

“It is easy for children to access pornography online,” says Digital Minister Chris Philip, “Parents deserve peace of mind that their children are protected online from seeing things no child should see.”

Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at theNSPCC（全国性预防儿童虐待协会），，，，is quoted saying：“是正确的，政府已经收听了解决在线安全法案中的差距之一的电话，并保护儿童免受色情范围，无论其托管何处。”

“Crucially, they have also acted on our concerns and closed the ‘OnlyFans loophole’ that would have let some of the riskiest sites off the hook despite allowing children access to extremely damaging material.”

“但sti的立法ll falls short of giving children comprehensive protection from preventable abuse and harmful content and needs significant strengthening to match the government’s rhetoric and focus minds at the very top of tech companies on child safety.”

As of this writing, the bill already has in scope most destinations where children might be exposed to pornography. These include search engines, popular adult sites, social media platforms, and video-sharing platforms. Previously, only commercial sites with provisions for user-generated content—those that allow users to upload their content—were in the scope of the bill.

保护儿童免受在线有害内容的侵害是崇高的原因。但是，并不是每个人都在年龄验证措施的想法背后集会。

The harm to privacy

许多人认为与色情网站共享敏感信息的行为是安全和隐私风险。年龄验证需要一个数据库，即谁要求允许查看什么色情（可能是信用卡详细信息）。所涉及的复杂性也可能鼓励色情网站将年龄验证外包给第三方，从而减少，更大，更全面的数据库，这对犯罪黑客或不道德的运营商具有巨大的潜在价值。

Jim Killock, the Open Rights Group executive director, said that age verification companies would benefit from this bill, but that it offers “little practical benefit for child safety, and much harm to people’s privacy.”

“没有迹象表明该提议将保护人们免于跟踪和分析色情观看。”基洛克在英国广播公司的一次采访中说。

Alec Muffet，众所周知的互联网安全传播者，penneda response to the drafts ofGuidance on Age-Verification Arrangements and Guidance on Ancillary Service Providers早在2018年。这些草案提出了类似的年龄验证过程。Muffet对“缺乏监管监督以及有关数据和信息安全性的运营和功能方面的标准缺乏标准”表示深切关注，进一步指出，这些将不可避免地造成不可弥补的英国用户隐私损失。

“这似乎并不能为这种数据特征提供比例的保护，尤其是在数百万英国人的规模上，在少数较弱的，'自制的，``自制''的数据库中；因此，我们正在为另一个‘Ashley Madison’-like data breach，，，，which in that case led to the suicide of several people because of the nature and sensitivity of the information leaked,” Muffet further noted. You can read more about the other concerns he raised inhis Medium post。

计算机与法律学会（SCL）highlighed另一个高风险,引入年龄verification in pornography sites before the Digital Economy Act 2017 was abandoned: “It’s not only public figures who stand to suffer in the event of a large-scale porn data breach. The most marginalised members of society also have a lot to fear. The kind of sex we like to have, and fantasise about having, can have extraordinarily high stakes for those experiencing homophobia and transphobia. LGBTQ people who are not out to their families stand to lose their homes and their relationships; in the case of young or vulnerable people, this poses a very real risk to their survival. Being outed is also dangerous for members of the BDSM community—there are no laws protecting the rights of people into BDSM from discrimination, and in this country your private sexual practices can get you fired.”