The UK’s data watchdog has been urged to introduce mandatory age checks for commercial pornography websites and protect underage users, or face legal action.

A letter sent to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) by a coalition of child safety groups warns the government’s failure to enact this safeguard is causing children lifelong trauma and putting them at risk of abuse.

The letter, signed by eleven major charities including the NSPCC, Barnardo’s, and the Children’s Society, notes that new powers handed to the ICO recently allow the body to usher in these measures. Addressing Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham directly, it states:

“You remain the only person in the country with the power to act to protect another generation of children from the distorting impact of open access to pornography, with all the dreadful and now well-documented effects we know that has on society, particularly in respect of violence towards women and girls.”

At the weekend, child exploitation experts told The Guardian that they are witnessing growing numbers of children acting in highly sexualised ways or being vulnerable to abuse because they are watching porn.

One case worker told the newspaper: “It is everywhere; on the school bus, in the corridors, in their social media feeds. Children should not be seeing this material, it is a form of trauma and abuse to let them see it”.

A number of recent studies have shown the increasingly detrimental ways that porn affects young people, including that children as young as seven are unintentionally stumbling across it online.

John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, which organised the letter to the ICO, said the group is prepared to sue the ICO if it fails to act in defence of children:

“We are asking the information commissioner to act now, using the powers she has under the AADC, to ensure porn companies don’t let children on their sites. If she doesn’t, we will look at a judicial review of her decision not to act”.

Vanessa Morse, CEO of the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation (CEASE), said:

“It is unconscionable that the government is delaying age verification until the online safety bill comes into force when it could be brought in now.

“Make no mistake, porn sites are not neutral or naive. They are actively engaging all users, including children, through data surveillance, SEO and algorithms, to get them to stay on their sites and return more often because this makes them money.

“This is exploitative and an unlawful misuse of children’s data and it must be stopped. We want the ICO to investigate this.”