Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The UK government has revived plans for porn sites to verify users’ ages — an initiative that was scrapped in 2019 due to technical challenges and criticism from privacy campaigners.
The new rules will be part of the UK’s Online Safety Bill, a mammoth piece of legislation intended to reset how digital platforms are governed in the country. The bill originally stipulated that only porn sites that allowed user-generated content (like OnlyFans) would have to verify users’ ages, but this has now been updated to cover all pornography sites.
“Parents deserve peace of mind that their children are protected online from seeing things no child should see,” said digital minister Chris Philp in a statement. “We are now strengthening the online…
