{"id":2298,"date":"2016-12-15T20:24:05","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T20:24:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rsoftsolution.com\/blog\/social-media-sites-may-need-to-apply-age-checks-under-uk-anti-porn-law.html"},"modified":"2016-12-15T20:24:05","modified_gmt":"2016-12-15T20:24:05","slug":"social-media-sites-may-need-to-apply-age-checks-under-uk-anti-porn-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/social-media-sites-may-need-to-apply-age-checks-under-uk-anti-porn-law.html","title":{"rendered":"Social media sites may need to apply age checks under UK anti-porn law"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Social media sites\u00a0such as\u00a0Twitter face being regulated in the UK under anti-porn proposals, as part of the government\u2019s Digital Economy bill<\/a> proposal.<\/p>\n

If the bill passes into law unamended, social media services could be scooped\u00a0into\u00a0needing to apply age verification to ensure all users are over 18 \u2014 in the same way the bill seeks to enforce an age-gate on pornography websites, with the overarching aim of trying to prevent children being exposed to adult content online.<\/p>\n

Another portion of the proposed law has caused controversy by\u00a0seeking\u00a0to prevent the spread of \u2018non-conventional\u2019 sex videos online<\/a> \u2014 meaning\u00a0regulators and\/or civil servants will\u00a0be tasked with\u00a0determining what passes for \u2018acceptably convention porn\u2019 in the UK. And what does not. (Which brings a whole new meaning to the phrase \u2018yes, minister<\/a>\u201c\u2026 )<\/p>\n

In a debate about the bill in the UK\u2019s second chamber this week<\/a>, Baroness Benjamin welcomed\u00a0the government\u2019s confirmation that the bill covers \u201cancillary service providers\u201d, such as Twitter, over and above pure-play\u00a0adult websites.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been some debate about the scope of Clause 15 and the ancillary service providers, but it seems clear to me that social media should be covered by this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was particularly delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady Shields, confirmed to the Lords Communications Committee on November 29 that: \u201cThe Bill covers ancillary services. There was a question about Twitter. Twitter is a user-generated uploading-content site. If there is pornography on Twitter, it will be considered covered under ancillary services\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n

So unless\u00a0a social media service is able to prove it is free of pornographic content \u2014 a very high bar for any user generated content platform \u2014 it looks like it could be subject\u00a0to the bill\u2019s age verification requirements.<\/p>\n

Peers asked specifically whether other social media sites such as Facebook could be classed as ancillary service providers under the proposed legislation.\u00a0Responding on behalf of the government, Lord Ashton of Hyde, the parliamentary under-secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport, suggested the classification\u00a0could indeed apply widely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government believe that services, including Twitter, can be classified by regulators as ancillary service providers where they are enabling or facilitating the making available of pornographic or prohibited material,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Also speaking during the debate, the Earl of\u00a0Erroll agreed with the government view that\u00a0social media sites present a loophole for UK lawmakers\u2019 aim of restricting children\u2019s access to adult material online but urged that any age verification process\u00a0should include privacy\u00a0safeguards in order to protect individuals\u2019 identities from becoming a target for hackers.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine the fallout if some hacker found a list of senior politicians who had had to go through an age-verification process on one of these websites, which would mean they had accessed them. They could bring down the Government or the Opposition overnight,\u201d he warned, going on to reveal he has personally shied away from\u00a0trying to look up something as mild and uncontroversial as online statistics about\u00a0the demographic breakdown of online pornography users\u00a0in the UK \u2014 on account of another piece of government legislation: the recently passed Investigatory Powers Act<\/a> (although technically this does not come into force until the start of next year; but its bulk surveillance\u00a0measures are already evidently impacting\u00a0browsing behavior).<\/p>\n

Said\u00a0Erroll: \u201cNoble Lords could all go to the MindGeek website and look at the statistics, where there is a breakdown of which age groups and genders are accessing these websites. I have not dared to do so because it will show I have been to that website, which I am sure would show up somewhere on one of these investigatory powers web searches and could be dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

To ward off the risk of hackers swiping\u00a0age verification identities, he suggested websites should not store the identity of people they age-check, but rather utilize a third party attribute provider to verify age \u2014 which would\u00a0only send back an encrypted token confirming a\u00a0check has been passed.<\/p>\n

However he was less clear on how to prevent the process being\u00a0reversed to re-link\u00a0identities to specific adult websites.\u00a0\u201cThey can then reverse it and find out who the person was \u2014 but they could still perhaps not be told by the regulator which site it was. So there should be a security cut-out in there,\u201d he suggested, adding:\u00a0\u201cI am not sure that we should not just put something in the Bill to mandate that a website cannot keep a person\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the person after they have proved that they are 18 then decides to subscribe to the website freely and to give it credit card details and stuff like that, that is a different problem \u2014 I am not worried about that. That is something else. That should be kept extremely securely and I personally would not give my ID to such a site \u2014 but at the age verification end, it must be private.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the general point of how to loop\u00a0social media websites into compliance with the legislation Erroll suggested payment providers could be targeted as a financial route to enforcing age gates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is probably unrealistic to block the whole of Twitter \u2014 it would make us look like idiots. On the other hand, there are other things we can do,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we start to make the payment service providers comply and help, they will make it less easy for those sites to make money. They will not be able to do certain things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Erroll went on to suggest the legislation may\u00a0require the government to create an enforcement body.\u00a0The BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) has been proposed as\u00a0the regulator to oversee which websites\u00a0to tell ISPs to block or not \u2014 but enforcement may require an additional body, he said: \u201cThe BBFC is happy to be a regulator, and I think it is also happy to inform ISPs which sites should be blocked, but other enforcement stuff might need to be done. There is provision for it in the Bill. The government may need to start looking for an enforcer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill does provide the regulator with the ability to issue fines for non-compliance of age verification checks \u2014 of up to \u00a3250,000 or five per cent of their turnover. However peers questioned how a UK regulator could enforce such fines on websites based overseas.<\/p>\n

Another clause in the bill aims to furnish the regulator with financial transaction blocking powers, however another peer, Lord Morrow, argued the provision is\u00a0\u201conly half present\u201d \u2014 urging further amendments to strengthen the regulator\u2019s powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also think that there is a very strong case to be made for an amendment giving the regulator power to require ancillary services such as advertisers not to advertise on sites operating in violation of UK law,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

MPs passed the bill back in November \u2014 but the legislation can still be amended before passing into law via the scrutiny process\u00a0in the House of Lords.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/GxO4zVV4zB8\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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