The introduction of age verification (AV) on pornographic websites moved a step closer late last night after Peers approved key regulations which are needed to ensure Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act comes into force.

What happens next?

There will now be a further vote in the House of Commons on the regulations and the Government has announced that age verification should start in Easter 2019.

Non-photographic child sex abuse images

During the debate, Baroness Howe of Idlicote pointed out that Part 3 will not address the issue that non-photographic, animated child sex abuse images, which are illegal to possess under Section 52 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, will still be available behind age verification checks. In 2017, there were 3,471 reports of alleged non-photographic images of child sex abuse made to the Internet Watch Foundation which gives some indication of the scale of the problem.

CARE polling

Baroness Howe also cited ComRes polling for CARE which showed 71 per cent of MPs think it is not right for the Digital Economy Act to make non-photographic child sex abuse images available online after AV checks.

Improvements should be made

The issues raised by Baroness Howe were echoed by both Baroness Benjamin and Lord Morrow. Other Peers also raised the fact that age verification will not apply to pornographic content on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Baroness Howe urged the Government to back her very simply, two-clause Bill which would close some of loopholes in the Digital Economy Act.

Find out more

READ: the full debate that took place in the House of Lords

Find out more about CARE’s work on online safety here