UK Porn Block Is a 'Privacy Timebomb,' New Report Warns (independent.co.uk) 87
New age restrictions on pornography that are set to come into effect in the UK next month are a "privacy timebomb," a new report by privacy watchdog Open Rights Group has warned. They say that the data protection in place to protect consumers is "vague, imprecise and largely a 'tick box' exercise." The Independent reports: The identity checks needed to stop under-18s from visiting pornographic websites will force any commercial provider of online pornography to carry out "robust" checks on their users to ensure they are adults. The age verification measures will be introduced on 15 July but a recent YouGov poll showed that 76 per cent of the British public is unaware of the ID checks being introduced. "With one month until rollout, the UK porn block is a privacy timebomb," the report stated.
Estimates suggest around 20 million adults in the UK watch porn, meaning the scale of any privacy breaches could be vast. "Due to the sensitive nature of age verification data, there needs to be a higher standard of protection than the baseline which is offered by data protection legislation," said Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock. "The BBFC's standard is supposed to deliver this. However, it is a voluntary standard, which offers little information about the level of data protection being offered and provides no means of redress if companies fail to live up to it." Mr Killock said the standard was therefore "pointless and misleading."
Estimates suggest around 20 million adults in the UK watch porn, meaning the scale of any privacy breaches could be vast. "Due to the sensitive nature of age verification data, there needs to be a higher standard of protection than the baseline which is offered by data protection legislation," said Open Rights Group executive director Jim Killock. "The BBFC's standard is supposed to deliver this. However, it is a voluntary standard, which offers little information about the level of data protection being offered and provides no means of redress if companies fail to live up to it." Mr Killock said the standard was therefore "pointless and misleading."
Re: So just use OpenBSD and Rust. (Score:1)
that 76 per cent of the British public is unaware of the ID checks being introduced
ROFLMAO OMG I just lost my shit laughing. The U.K. Accepts this level of ignorance?
Re: So just use OpenBSD and Rust. (Score:1)
Keep calm and bend over for the long (Arab) dick of the law.
Re:So just use OpenBSD and Rust. (Score:5, Funny)
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Let's be honest: EVERYBODY watches porn.
Nope.
The only ones who oppose it, are those who associate it with real fucked-up things like raping children and such.
Nope. I think it's a very sexist industry with a horrific gender pay gap but I have no issue with people choosing to work in it and recognise the large market demand for it.
That is how THEIR brains work. It is what THEY think of first.
Self awareness check?
with a brutal torture dungeon in their basement at home where they get hung up by needles, pissed on, and hot wax candles, massive cocks or limbs in their orifices while whipping themselves bloody for "being a dirty sinner"
One problem is that the videos showing this are fundamentally impossible to validate as entirely voluntary. People want to get off to a fantasy, not to the actual torture and rape of some poor trafficked person.
And/Or of course, raping children.
Don't rape children.
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Why do you think it would be of higher quality? What grounds do you have for believing they would just gladly pocket the extra money?
Will not work anyways (Score:4, Insightful)
And is obviously not necessary in the first place. Teens have had access to porn basically since porn was invented. Do we have a massive crisis with all of them being damaged from seeing porn? Of course not. There is no scientifically sound indication that watching porn is harmful to teens. And children do not care and do not understand what they are seeing anyways. The worst thing that can happen is that they are grossed out. The whole thing is an irrational agenda pushed by mentally deranged fanatics that want to re-establish Victorian ideas about "moral". And that _is_ harmful to teens and children.
In addition, this will not even work. Any teen that wants access to porn will get it, despite these new attempts at controlling at what people can see and what not. There are countless VPN solutions out there, some of them free, some of the free ones specifically designed to circumvent censorship. Any somewhat tech-savvy teen can use these and most of the others will know somebody that can and can show them.
Re:Will not work anyways (Score:5, Interesting)
I have. Someone tries to prove porn is harmful and fails every so often. It's a long and hallowed tradition. I did a report on it in Jr. High, I was already unpopular so WTF. I wasn't much of a porn hound... yet. Anyway, everyone and their mom has taken a stab at it. I cited the Nixon administration's attempt back then...
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Thanks. It really is one of the Big Lies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie) that have been told to people so often that most believe it without ever questioning it. Yet it is clearly not true or the efforts to prove it would have found something solid long ago.
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I've seen a lot of anti-porn campaigners claim that science proves pornography is harmful. Sometimes they even provide studies. But when I actually look at the studies, I always find them unconvincing - there's always some type of big flaw in there, usually in sampling bias. The problem is you will never get ethical approval for a proper controlled trial.
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It depends how you define harm. It doesn't generally cause PTSD or anything like that in children, but like airbrushed models in magazines it does set up some unrealistic expectations and standards.
There was some research done showing that university students in the UK feel a lot of pressure to remove their pubic hair now, because smooth shaven is what they are used to looking at and natural hair is considered some kind of fetish in porn. It's become almost like not bothering to style the hair on your head
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The way the UK is going, it's only a matter of time before they're back to skirts for table legs.
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Oh sure. Pretend you don't get a little flushed at the thought of running your finger around the curves on this little darling.
http://juliegrosclaude.co/wp-c... [juliegrosclaude.co]
Re:Will not work anyways (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition, this will not even work. Any teen that wants access to porn will get it, despite these new attempts at controlling at what people can see and what not. There are countless VPN solutions out there, some of them free, some of the free ones specifically designed to circumvent censorship. Any somewhat tech-savvy teen can use these and most of the others will know somebody that can and can show them.
You're operating under the assumption that the law's purpose is to prevent young people from gaining access to porn, rather than to track who views porn, for the purposes of leverage/blackmail. I'm not sure that's necessarily a safe assumption.
"That's some seriously dirty stuff you've been watching there, Prime Minister. It would be a shame if the voters knew how naughty you've been." — the spooks
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You're operating under the assumption that the law's purpose is to prevent young people from gaining access to porn, rather than to track who views porn, for the purposes of leverage/blackmail.
Not really. I fully assume this is actually about greater control of society by more surveillance, more repression and getting dirt on basically everybody that can then be used against them. And I think that is basically a certainty, even if useful idiots exist everywhere and that certainly includes government and law enforcement. But putting that disclaimer in every time is tedious when I am attacking the narrative presented and not the actual, much, much darker story really behind this activity. Both need
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It is not about porn or children accessing porn or even government extortion. It is about mass censorship of the internet.
Ask yourself one question and one question only, how much would you have to censor the internet to make it safe for a first grader, the learning reader, an entirely safe for SIX YEAR OLDS, internet. Well suck it up, you idiot poms, your are setting yourself up to be censored like you were six year olds. Nearly anything can be blocked beyond anything that you would allow in a primary sch
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Except that the spooks are already spying on everyone and this will only make it harder for them as larger numbers of people decide to use VPN instead of going along with this idiotic legislation.
Send in your ID (Score:2)
The internet kept working for them.
Try a gov and its data protection legislation.
Estimates suggest around 32 million LIARs (Score:2)
Estimates suggest around 20 million adults in the UK watch porn
Considering the adult population of the UK is about 52 million [ons.gov.uk]:
- Roughly 20 million UK adults (38%) watch porn
- Roughly 32 million UK adults (62%) lie to interviewers about watching porn
Stupid American Religious Conservatives (Score:2, Informative)
in America the 1st will kill this very fast! (Score:2)
in America the 1st will kill this very fast!
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Yes, and then a year later the government would introduce some new law that is intended to achieve the same effect indirectly. It's one if the big American traditions. If you can't ban X because of that pesky constitution, just make X subject to a few regulations that are intentionally impossible to comply with.
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Hmm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_the_United_Kingdom)....
I make that at most 33% atheist in some fashion and the rest mostly christian. I think blaming the usual fuckers is quite likely the correct thing to do here.
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Not really. The UK is mostly Christian on paper - but those Christians are not as devout as is expected in the US, and largely just keep it up out of tradition. Church attendance is very low - usually just christenings, weddings and funerals. Outside of Northern Ireland, the religious lobby has almost no political influence at all. We do have one, it's just ineffectual. But we also have a thriving tabloid industry, and we are very good at getting into a moral panic without religion.
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Although in this case it's a pet project by the deeply christian woman that proposed it as home secretary and then pushed through the legislation as prime minister.
Just another failure on her long and embarrassing list.
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It's fair to pin much of the blame on her, but not all of it. Most MPs went along with it quite readily, because no-one dares to openly oppose it and risk being branded as supporting porn for children - the attack ads write themselves. You can put some blame too on a few tabloid newspapers, most notably the Daily Mail, who saw that 'think of the children' is a great way to sell papers and whipped up a bit of public outrage.
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Nevermore (Score:5, Funny)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I websurfed, weak and weary,
...Over many a strange and spurious website of 'hot chicks galore',
...While I clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning,
...And my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour.
..."'Tis not possible," I muttered, "give me back my cheap hardcore!" -
Quoth the server, "404".
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To be honest, it's the text from a (now defunct) 404 redirection page that I snagged years ago.
Next up (Score:2)
The UK to require age verification before allowing people to look at themselves naked in the mirror.
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Oh please. I don't know any young teenagers that can't access any and all sexual material that they choose.
Sex education is taught in schools, it's taught badly in the playgrounds, it's learned by experience well before 16 by a substantial proportion of the UK population. This isn't going to change a fucking thing.
UK Porn Block is a "boon to VPN companies" (Score:2)
facial recognition (Score:2)
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Easier, maybe. But I hardly trust them to delete the photograph. Do you?
Make age verification the job of the ISP (Score:2)
Very simple solution. Make it illegal to offer unrestricted Internet access to anyone under 18. Offer a only a highly restricted kiddie-net for those under 18. The default for all sites would be restricted. You would need special certification to be deemed kiddie safe.