The UK government's compulsory age verification system, targeting visitors to pornographic web sites and so on, has been delayed until later this year. The age checks were expected to be in place by next month but in an update buried within a press release about 5G projects in the UK, it says that the public and the industry need more time "to prepare for and comply with age verification".
Compulsory age checks were seen by the UK government to be the solution needed to prevent children accidentally stumbling over explicit content online. According to a BBC report, one of the reasons for the delay might have been that companies developing age verification tech simply couldn't meet the April deadline with their supporting software.
Age verification is expected to require various / multiple forms of ID (perhaps passport info, credit card info, and/or others) being input by someone who wishes to browse a pornographic website while based in the UK. Such information collection and registration rings alarm bells for privacy campaigners and anyone who has read the news over recent years - such user info is often being purloined, ransomed and distributed by hackers.
The April 2018 deadline was set by Digital Minister Matt Hancock last year. However, it sounds like developers are still working in the dark about the red lines on what is and isn't acceptable under the scheme (sounds familiar). About 20 - 34 million UK residents will be impacted by the age verification checks, it is thought, so it's surprising that there hasn't been more debate about checks, and how they will be implemented. Perhaps that is because people think that the age checks will be easy to swerve.
The official reason for an 'end of the year' start of implementation is that the government wants to "allow time for the BBFC as regulator to undertake a public consultation on its draft guidance which will be launched later this month". Then it needs more time for the public and industry to get ready. A final step will be when the BBFC guidance gets cleared by Parliament (probably) and the law comes into force.
