A Conservative Peer has called on the Government to better protect children from online pornography, as the Online Safety Bill is debated in the House of Lords.
Lord Bethell, a former technology minister, is seeking to amend the Bill in order to force pornography websites to start verifying the age of users within six months of the legislation becoming law.
The amendment is backed by several MPs and 14 charities, including the NSPCC and Barnardo’s.
Age verification
Lord Bethell argued that the Bill’s current definition of age verification is not strong enough, and the legislation’s measures could create loopholes for websites to claim it would be too difficult to enforce checks.
He said: “The gambling industry has done it”, adding that “you can’t buy a knife online without saying your age, or cigarettes or alcohol.
“Age verification is already a tangible thing that’s in existence. So I don’t see the point of having to go through several years of consultation and rule-drafting and code-drafting and enforcement regime engagement.”
A Government spokesman said: “Our bill will force any site that offers pornography to stop children accessing it or face huge fines. It will require platforms to prevent underage people viewing such harmful content through the use of measures such as age verification.”
Scooby Doo
Writing in The Times, Baroness Bertin echoed Lord Bethell’s call for the Bill to include more robust age verification requirements.
“Mainstream pornography sites are rife with violent, degrading content, most often directed towards young women. They also create and carry content that features characters from children’s cartoons, such as Frozen and Scooby Doo, to lure children in. This could be addressed.”
Age verification checks were approved under the Digital Economy Act 2017, but plans to implement them were abandoned in October 2019 .
‘Conversion therapy’
Last month, a Conservative backbencher attempted to amend the Online Safety Bill to brand content “which advertises or promotes the practice of so-called conversion practices of LGBTQ+ individuals” as ‘harmful’.
Responding, The Christian Institute warned that the vague wording could lead to “any content which invites under-18s identifying as LGBT to change their religion being removed”.
The amendment was later withdrawn, ahead of the UK Government’s announcement on its plans to ban so-called ‘conversion therapy’.
Cartoon characters used to hook 6-year-olds on porn