David Cameron forges ahead with adult website age-verification plans

£250,000 fine threat for adult sites anywhere in the world that fail to comply

The government is - probably unwisely - going ahead with its plans to demand that all adult websites run some form of age verification process to prevent children from accessing the material.

The new initiative from Prime Minister David Cameron follows the failure of opt-in content filters, which ISPs have been obliged since 2013 to set up and activate by default in order to filter adult content. Subscribers, however, have largely ignored them. Coinciding with the Edward Snowden leaks, critics suggested that the filtering was merely the thin end of an internet-monitoring wedge.

In July 2013, Cameron outlined plans to require adult websites to have mandatory age filters, which would keep out under-18s, but unfortunately was unable to explain exactly how that would work on the borderless internet. That, however, hasn't stopped the Prime Minister from forging ahead with his plan.

A public consultation has been launched today by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, outlining the government's preferred approach, which will put the responsibility, according to the department's statement, "squarely on the shoulders of companies who create and profit from online pornography" - companies that are largely based outside of the UK.

The statement continues: "Alongside the legal requirement for companies to put in place age verification technology, the government will also establish a new regulatory framework to monitor and enforce compliance, with the ability to impose civil sanctions where breaches are identified."

Baroness Shields, internet safety and security minister (yes, there is such a thing), said: "The internet is a tremendous resource for learning and creativity but it is important to make sure that children are able to make the most of all it has to offer in a safe way... Just as we do offline, we want to make sure children are prevented from accessing pornographic content online which should only be viewed by adults."

The government was joined by the charity NSPCC, which described the initiative as "an important and welcome step forward in keeping children safe from online pornography".

If you feel strongly about it, you have until 12 April to respond.

The government has also promised to "build on existing measures by tackling these issues further, addressing cyber bullying, sexualised content, self-harm and suicide sites, extremism content, and child sexual abuse online" - indicating that further internet-control measures are being planned by the government.