The British Government Proposes New Guidelines For Age Verification For Online Pornography Content Using AI

CEO of the media regulator Ofcom, Melanie Dawes. (photo: civilservice.blog.gov.uk)

JAKARTA - On Tuesday, December 5, the UK proposed a new guide for age verification to protect children from access to online pornographic content. There are suggestions to use artificial intelligence-based technology (AI) to determine whether an audience appears to have a legitimate age.

The newly passed new law, namely the Online Security Act, requires sites and applications that display or publish pornographic content to ensure that children usually cannot access pornography through their services. The legal age for watching pornography in the UK is 18 years or more.

The average child first saw online pornography at the age of 13, while nearly a quarter met this at the age of 11. Even one in ten children even at the age of 9 years. This was obtained from a 2021-2022 study conducted by the Office of the Commission of Children for the UK.

"Despite their approach, we expect all services to offer strong protection to children so they don't accidentally encounter pornography, and also maintain the right to privacy and freedom for adults to access legal content," said Ofcom media regulator CEO Melanie Dawes.

The regulator describes suggestions about facial age estimation by using AI to analyze the audience's features. It will likely require users to take selfies on the device and upload them.

The supervisory agency said the proposed guidance also included matching photo identification, requiring users to upload ID photos such as passports or SIMs to prove their age, and credit card checks.

Another suggestion is open banking, where users can give their banks approval to share information with online porn sites to confirm that they are over 18 years old.

The Institute of Economics, a free market think tank, says that mandatory age verification threatens user privacy and will result in more sensitive use of data by third parties that can lead to abuse and abuse.

Regulators say weaker methods such as age statements, online payment methods that do not require 18 years of age, and statements or warnings, no longer meet standards in their new guidelines.

Ofcom said they hope to publish their final guides by early 2025.