Last week,the UK’s new Online Safety Act came into effect, aiming to prevent under-18s from accessing p*rnography and other adult material online. In practical terms, this means that sites and services likeTwitter, Bluesky,Discord, and more had to implement age verification systems, and the methods used to verify ages have raised a series of privacy concerns.
Apetitionto have the Online Safety Act repealed was started, and at the time of writing, it has 390,273 signatures. This prompted a government response, but it’s far from what many were hoping for, and it’s clear that these age checks are not going anywhere anytime soon.
UK Government Dismisses Calls To Repeal The Online Safety Act
The petition argued that the new law is “far broader and restrictive than is necessary”, since it not only covers p*rn sites, but also small hobby forums, which may struggle to implement age verification checks.
“We think that Parliament should repeal the act and work towards producing proportionate legislation rather than risking clamping down on civil society talking about trains, football, video games or even hamsters because it can’t deal with individual bad faith actors,” the complaint reads.
Despite this argument being supported by many, the government response makes it clear that it will not be scrapping or scaling back the new regulations. “The Government has no plans to repeal the Online Safety Act, and is working closely with Ofcom to implement the Act as quickly and effectively as possible to enable UK users to benefit from its protections,” the response reads.
It goes on to say that the act is already proportional, and that a site’s intention, size, and audience will be taken into account when assessing whether or not age verification is required. However, we have already seen instances of hobby sites, and even subreddits like r/cider or resources like r/sexualassault, blocked until a user’s age has been verified.
The gaming community was already having to deal with the new rules with Discord, as previously accessible adult-only channels are now locked to UK userswho haven’t verified their age. Soon,Xbox users will be faced with this too, and anyone who has not verified their age in the UK will be locked out of voice/text chat and even game invites.Nexus Mods is also affected, blocking users from adult mods until their age is verified.
The methods of age verification have also come under fire. Several companies have rolled out a range of systems for sites and services to use, such as scanning a selfie to judge whether or not you’re 18, or compelling users to share ID, such as passports. Many concerns have been raised about sharing this data with private companies, so it’s no wonder that VPN interest has shot up in the UK.
