Government drops controversial online 'porn block' plan

Government will instead focus on protecting children through wider 'online harms' regulation

The UK government has officially scrapped its plan to impose age verification for online pornography.

Nicky Morgan, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media, and sport, confirmed that the government was dropping the controversial 'porn block' plan following years of debate on the issue.

In a written statement to Parliament, Morgan said that the government would not commence "Part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 concerning age verification for online pornography" and instead, would focus on protecting children through wider "online harms" regulation.

The Online Harms White Paper was published in April this year. It proposes "the establishment of a duty of care on companies to improve online safety, overseen by an independent regulator with strong enforcement powers to deal with non-compliance".

The idea of a ' porn block ' was first introduced by the government in 2015, with the aim of verifying the age of anyone logging-on to a pornographic website from the UK. The aim was to prevent under-18s from accessing such websites.

The law would have forced pornographic websites to verify visitors' ages. Websites anywhere in the world not complying would have faced penalties, such as being blocked in the UK by internet service providers or having payment services for the site withdrawn.

All websites "more than one-third pornographic" would have been covered under the law, meaning the likes of Redddit, Imgur and Twitter would be exempt from the ban, despite hosting pornographic content themselves.

However, the controversial plan was opposed by privacy campaigners from day one, who argued that it would enable people's browsing habits to be closely tracked, potentially leading to blackmail and online surveillance. There were also many practical and technical issues associated with the implementation of the block.

The scheme was due to launch on 15th July, after being postponed in April 2018. In June, the scheme was delayed for another six months after the government failed to tell European regulators about the age verification standards that it expected the companies to meet in accordance with the European Union laws.

Civil liberties organisation Open Rights Group has welcomed the government ' s decision to drop the porn block plan.

"Age verification for porn as currently legislated would cause huge privacy problems if it went ahead," said Jim Killock, executive director of Open Rights Group.

"We are glad the government has stepped back from creating a privacy disaster, that would lead to blackmail scams and individuals being outed for the sexual preferences," he added.