U.k. Starts Enforcing Online Age Check Rules

A U.K. rule requiring that pornography websites verify nan property of their users took effect Friday.

The BBC reports that astir 6,000 porn sites person said they will commencement verifying users’ ages to comply pinch nan Online Safety Act, though astatine slightest 1 awesome tract was not requiring property checks arsenic of Friday morning.

The rule besides requires that online platforms forestall children from being exposed to harmful content, which is why sites like Reddit, Bluesky, X, and Grindr person besides begun asking users successful nan U.K. to verify their property done intends including selfies aliases government-issued IDs.

This is conscionable 1 of a number of caller kid protection laws that could normalize online property checks globally, according to Wired. The attack has been criticized by groups specified arsenic nan Electronic Frontier Foundation arsenic a threat to online privateness and anonymity — indeed, it’s worthy noting that successful a caller breach of nan making love information app Tea, galore of nan affected images were selfies and integer IDs uploaded for relationship verification.

Some net users whitethorn effort to get astir property checks by utilizing clone IDs, selfies of video crippled characters, aliases VPNs.