ISPs may be forced to block sites which fail to do so, and the fact that many such sites are not based in the UK nor subject to British law shall pose plenty of difficulties for the law’s implementation, as will its provisions forcing ISPs to prohibit access to “non-conventional sex acts”, which has provoked plenty of criticism from the less vanilla members of society.
The legislation, which requires websites serving up adult content to verify users’ ages or be blocked by ISPs, was criticised as an “unworkable proposal” by Open Rights Group, among others, including feminist pornographer Pandora Blake:
On the passing of the bill, Open Rights Group’s executive director Jim Killock said: “Age verification is an accident waiting to happen. Despite repeated warnings, parliament has failed to listen to concerns about the privacy and security of people who want to watch legal adult content.
“As we saw with the Ashley Madison leaks, the hacking of private information about people’s sex lives, has huge repercussions for those involved. The UK government has failed to take responsibility for its proposals and placed the responsibility for people’s privacy into the hands of porn companies.”
[…]
Last year, the National Audit Office warned of government’s data-handling capabilities, noting that there were 9,000 data breaches over the reporting period and warning that “cuts to departmental budgets and staff numbers, and increasing demands form citizens for online public services, have changed the way government collects, stores and manages information.”Samson said that large parts of the Digital Economy Bill regarding data sharing remained unclear, and noted that it received Royal Assent with a lot of information left to follow.
“We’ve been told throughout the process that everything will adhere to the Data Protection Act, but that will be redundant from May of next year when the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation comes in,” said Samson. “Whatever is drafted to comply with the DPA will have to change for the GDPR, which means ensuring the individual’s consent and knowledge regarding how their data is being used.”
Source: Just delete the internet – pr0n-blocking legislation receives Royal Assent
Robin Edgar
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