If I asked you how many children watch Pornhub, whatever you say will be nearer the truth than the answer given by one of its executives. She said none! In all the schools we have talked in about porn risks, the one website name that keeps coming up is “Pornhub”, the best known adult entertainment website.
This week we are sharing an excellent blog by colleague John Carr OBE. It highlights the latest campaign by the porn industry to get rid of that age verification legislation by suggesting an unproven method that will take years to develop, if it ever is. Why? because the current proposals will put a real dent in Pornhub’s obscene profits. Their professed aim is to destigmatise porn. In it we hear about an astonishing Times Radio interview by Hugo Rifkind with Sarah Bain, a partner in Pornhub-owning company Ethical Capital Partners, and Bob Cunningham, until recently CEO of child protection charity, International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC). Sarah Bain is now Pornhub’s head of public engagement. Ms Bain is the one who tried to convince us no children use Pornhub. Magical thinking or plain misrepresentation?
Guest Blog: “Destigmatising” porn?
I don’t think so
“This blog is principally about the cynicism of the world’s biggest porn publisher, Pornhub. Among other things it demonstrates how, in pursuit of its gigantic profits, Pornhub chooses to live in a moral vacuum while playing fast and loose with the reputations of children’s organizations.
Half-hoping I never have to write about this subject again, towards the end of it this blog has also turned into something of a mini-history of how the UK ended up with age verification for pornography sites and how, starting at least in 2003, following sustained campaigning by children’s organizations and others we ended up with the Online Safety Act 2023.
I apologise for the length of this blog.
We begin with a recent radio programme
Two weeks ago I was sent this link to a video clip on YouTube. Watch it and weep. I did, at least metaphorically.
The clip is of a nearly 30-minute-long face-to-face interview recorded in London on 24th January 2025 and broadcast on Times Radio on 5th February. Nowadays many radio stations routinely film studio interviews and put out the pictures or the sound, or both, through a variety of channels including network TV and YouTube.
YouTube can provide a full transcript of the interview. How you access it is revealed when you go to the YouTube page. That’s why and how I have been able to direct you so precisely to some of the wilder statements made in the studio that day and in the run up to it.
As you will see, the interviewer was Hugo Rifkind, a senior journalist on The Times of London, a sister company of Times Radio.
There were two interviewees. One is normally based in Canada, the other in the USA.
The Canada-based interviewee was Sarah Bain. According to Linkedin she is a partner in the Canadian private equity firm that took over what was previously “Mindgeek”. They rebranded as “Aylo” but let’s stick with “Pornhub”, the name of their best-known brand asset.
The private equity firm in question goes by the risible name of “Ethical Capital Partners”. We will return to the word “ethical” later. “Ethical” and “porn”. Two words that do not sit well together.
But what, I hear you ask, is the corporate motto of the business that intervened to become the owners of the world’s largest and most-disgraced porn company?
“Unlocking value through ethics-first investing”.
I am not joking. But I think they might be.
Small reminder
Here is a quote from an article about Pornhub. It was published on 4th December 2020 in the New York Times
“Pornhub” is infested with rape videos. It monetizes child rapes, revenge pornography, spy cam videos of women showering, racist and misogynist content, and footage of women being asphyxiated in plastic bags. A search for “girls under18” (no space) or “14yo” leads in each case to more than 100,000 videos. Most aren’t of children being assaulted, but too many are.”
Note that date. December 2020. Dates matter in this sorry story.
Despite the changes of name and ownership I wonder how many of the senior people who worked for Pornhub before December 2020 are still employed by the company or are profiting from it through shareholdings or similar?
Pornhub’s deaf ear
Over many years a multitude of entreaties from all manner of interests failed to get Pornhub to do anything serious about child sexual abuse material on their platform and failed to get them to take effective measures to prevent children from seeing pornography on their platform.
Following publication of the New York Times article, Visa and Mastercard threatened Pornhub’s ability to collect payments. Globally. Pornhub acted immediately. As I understand it within ten days 80% of all of Pornhub’s videos had gone but they did not act in a meaningful way to stop under-age users visiting the site. They still haven’t.
Back to the interview
Also In the studio that day, sharing the limelight with Sarah from Pornhub, was Bob Cunningham, recently CEO of the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC), now its Head of Policy.
Bob and Sarah sat together only to be taken apart by an interviewer who had done his homework.
The dynamic duo were in the UK to advocate for “on-device age verification for porn sites”. That’s unusually specific. But it was unusually specific for a reason.
Bob and Sarah were suggesting there are two mutually exclusive ways of doing age verification. The on-device way, which they say will work, and any other way. Which won’t.
I’ll come to what on-device age verification for porn sites would entail but, just to be clear, Bob and Sarah were describing and advocating for a system that does not currently exist. Whereas other ways of doing age verification do already exist and are working extremely well with very, very high levels of accuracy.
Bob and Pornhub were therefore really initating an argument about who should have responsibility for what, who carries the liability for what, and where different operations in the age verification process should be carried out.
Does that sound dull? I hope you’ll see it isn’t. There’s a lot at stake and the whole saga raises several other important issues, particularly for children’s organizations. Read on.
No legal obstacle
First off, I need to say nothing in UK law or in any laws I know about elsewhere would preclude the development of an on-device system or systems. The technology to enable it is already around, and I have no doubt on-device age verification can play a valuable part in protecting children from age-inappropriate content or, equally importantly, preventing them from entering age-inappropriate online environments.
Here’s the thing though. These existing, effective methods of doing age verification place the onus on the owner of the porn site or App in question. They are directly supplying the porn so they must ensure they are not letting anyone under-age through their virtual door. The kind of on-device system Bob and Susan want puts the bulk of the onus, the cost and liability on everyone else in the internet eco system.
I have absolutely no problem with any and all parts of the internet eco system stepping up and doing their bit to keep children safe. On the contrary. But that’s not the only thing going on here, or rather it is only part of it.
51 seconds in
51 seconds into the interview Rifkind refers to a document Pornhub produced last year. It refers to the UK’s and other jurisdictions’ plans to implement age verification for porn sites as
“ineffective, haphazard and dangerous”
Neither of the interviewees sought to qualify or withdraw from that sweeping generalization.
Although Rifkind didn’t mention it in the interview, turning now only to the UK law, that same Pornhub document said it was
“… unfit for purpose with no chance of success.”
Well that’s put us right and no mistake.
I wonder if Bob or Sarah spoke to any mainstream children’s groups in the UK before making their ill-advised trip across the Atlantic? If they did, did Sarah take the opportunity to explain why Pornhub recently self-identified as a social media (user-to-user) site?
This simple, cost-free step bought Pornhub a further six months of the status quo in the UK.
Hanging on to as much as possible of the status quo for as long as possible keeps the money tap fully open and gushing. It’s a major theme running through this blog and explains many of Pornhub’s actions. Defeating current proposals is the best possible outcome for Pornhub. Delay is next best.
Massive misrepresentation
In the course of the interview with Rifkind Bob and Sarah massively misrepresented and sought to discredit how the already-established and working age verification solutions work. Elsewhere we’d call this scaremongering.
To protect children from porn, no parent—or anyone—will have to manage
“millions of websites”
(2.46 and 8.39 in the video). That’s a few steps up from the
“hundreds of thousands”
referred to in the Pornhub document I mentioned earlier, and orders of magnitude away from the
“ten thousand”
which Bob mentioned in the interview (10.22).
Which is it guys? Millions, hundreds of thousands or ten thousand?
The truth is none of the above apply in any already-existing, flourishing age verification system of which I am aware or others that are in the production pipeline. There’s a lot of innovating going on.
Already existing, reusable age verification mechanisms obviate the need to repeat the verification process every time you go to a new site or service or go back to a site or service you have already used.
Bob’s and Sarah’s claims are literally absurd.
Moving on
Proclaiming on-device solutions as the only way will not wash in the UK, but if it creates confusion or delay in other jurisdictions that’s a big win for Pornhub.
What does delay mean for them? Money in the bank. I already said that.
Why didn’t Bob & Sarah support a more traditional, technology-neutral approach such as that advocated, for example, by the Ethics and Public Policy Center? They are promoting a model Bill for US State legislatures to consider. Here is a key paragraph from their explainer where, they tell us, in their Bill they have included
“several methods and options for verification for a website to choose from… We… recommend (including) digital ID, as an increasingly available option that is very protective of user privacy, and also… any other commercially reasonable means or method that reliably and accurately can determine (if) a user… is a minor and prevent access…. to the (relevant) content… since new methods for verification continue to develop and become available…”
But do children visit Pornhub?
Apparently not.
In the opening sequence of the video, and at 1.10 and 2.04, when asked how many children Sarah thought might be visiting Pornhub Sarah said
“none”
Sheesh.
Or if there were it was only because they got there via social media or search engines, as if, in this context, how they arrived was all that important! Pornhub could still have stopped them if they had a proper age verification system in place.
Pornhub’s current arrangement only requires someone to tick a box to confirm they are 18 or above. This is not serious. If anything, for children, it adds to the naughtiness of the adventure. It acts as a come-on, not a deterrent.
So Pornhub says it now favours new on-device ways of doing age verification to block access by non-existent children.
Rifkind was mystified. So am I.
In The Times newspaper
On the same day the interview was broadcast Rifkind also published an article in The Times of London.
In case it’s behind a paywall for you here is the headline
“Porn lords couldn’t care less about our kids”
That probably tells you everything you need to know.
Querying the curious alliance
Rifkind asked Bob why ICMEC was working with Pornhub, but he didn’t pursue it with any vigour. I’d say it was pretty clear Rifkind thought ICMEC were well-meaning innocents (“useful tool” 22.48) who had been manipulated, duped.
Colleagues in the child protection world now refer to age verification on the device as the “ICMEC-Pornhub” solution. What a terrible epithet for ICMEC to live with and what a pity for the idea itself.
Appearing as a double act to defend an indefensible position, be that on camera, in newspaper or radio interviews, OpEds or in multiple legislatures at home or abroad, advertises ICMEC’s association with and ties them to the world’s biggest porn site as that site pursues its own commercial objectives. A most regrettable outcome.
But not irreversible.
VPNs?
On a minor but irritating point about VPNs. Bob and Sarah referred to them several times e.g. at 12.04 and 25.15 saying they provided an easy way for children to circumvent any site-based age verification system. As someone who has tried to log in from abroad to watch yet another triumph of Leeds United on the BBC or Sky, can I simply say detecting VPNs is trivially easy and even easier to block. If you want to. And see below for what Pornhub agreed to do with VPNs in the UK when they were trying to persuade the IWF to accept them into membership.
Porn sites are worried about losing customers
The simple truth is Pornhub, and others like them, believe if checks on age, or anything, are introduced, existing or potential customers will go away or stay away for fear their identity and sexual preferences or the frequency of their visits could be discovered by a potential blackmailer, be they a hacker or a malevolent insider who works either for the porn company or the verification provider. They will then be extorted or publicly shamed, or both. Compliant porn sites will have fewer customers. Their revenues will be hit. Maybe badly.
It’s not my job to tell porn companies they should focus on informing their customers about their strong firewalls or about modern forms of privacy-protecting technology because I am sure, even if they did, not many will believe them. Pardon me if I do not shed a tear. I mean if you were to ask the average person to rank businesses according to their perceived trustworthiness, where do you think porn companies would appear?
Porn companies are in a bind.
Sewing doubt, floating distractions which lead to hesitation and, er, delay, are their only or best available options right now.
But Pornhub knows they can’t make money the centrepiece of their argument so they hooked up with a prominent children’s organization to help with the laundering.
Pornhub’s cynicism knows no bounds. It’s a shame ICMEC got caught up in it.
Pornhub has form
Pornhub is no stranger to trying to manipulate children’s organizations for their own advantage.
ICMEC was only the third and latest such victim I know about. If I have missed anyone, please let me know.
Pornhub’s first target. The IWF
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is the UK’s internet hotline. In 1996 I was on its original Policy Board and remained a director for seven years.
The IWF no longer publishes the minutes of their Executive Board meetings. I don’t know when or why they stopped but, luckily, I kept notes.
In June 2017, at item 5, the minutes record that the IWF’s Executive Board asked their Ethics Committee to “anticipate” an approach from the “adult industry” asking to join the IWF. Pornhub were sniffing around.
The minutes show it was acknowledged that allowing them into membership could create a “reputational risk”. No shit Sherlock. But there was also a “financial interest” which “should not be neglected”. Hmm.
Pornhub membership
In July 2018 there was a discussion at the Executive Board about what to charge Pornhub if they did end up becoming a member. Up until then the level of the membership fee was determined by the size of the company. The Executive Board minutes of 11th December 2018 show it was agreed that even though Pornhub was not as large as those paying the highest-level fee (then £80,000 a year) Pornhub’s fee should nevertheless be set at that level, “or higher”,because of the aforementioned “reputational risk”. Double Hmmm.
It rumbled on. There was strong opposition from within from staff and individual Board Members.
At the first Board meeting of 2019 on 5th April, it was reported at para 8.2.7 of the minutes, that
“(Pornhub) has agreed to join the IWF on the basis of a one-year pilot membership and has been informed that their membership cannot commence before age verification has been put in place, which is expected to be in June 2019. They will also be required to confirm that their VPN service, which enables people to circumvent age verification, is not available in the UK. The Board approved this approach.”
At the next IWF Board Meeting, in July 2019 it is recorded at para 8.2.8 that because Pornhub had not met the stipulated condition on age verification the “pilot membership had been put on hold”. This formulation was repeated in the following minutes (October 2019). Then I lost track.
Pornhub has never been allowed to become a member of the IWF. While we’re at it, neither has Only Fans.
But think of the effrontery of Pornhub wanting to join the IWF in the run up to those New York Times revelations. I say again, their cynicism knows no bounds.
Pornhub’s second target. INHOPE
Plainly disappointed by the lack of speedy progress with the IWF, Pornhub looked elsewhere. They soon found a patsy, and at a much lower price. In early 2020 it emerged INHOPE, the global network of internet hotlines, had, in June of the previous year accepted 25,000 Euros from Pornhub, making them a “Silver Corporate partner”. No less. Roll of drums and fanfare please.
Pornhub’s “partnership” with INHOPE put them in the same exalted company as Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Google and others. Champagne corks must have been popping in Canada that night. But it all turned to dust. Quickly.
I was on INHOPE’s Advisory Board at the time. When it emerged that Pornhub money had found its way into INHOPE’s bank account there were ructions. A members’ revolt. No papers mentioning Pornhub or the money had been seen by or sent to the Advisory Board. It turned out neither did most of the full members of INHOPE have any idea what had been done in their name. INHOPE had been hornswoggled. Everybody knew it. Nobody liked it.
I resigned from the Advisory Board and refused to return until INHOPE gave the money back, which they did. Procedures were changed so, effectively, nothing like that could happen again. Their confidence in INHOPE shattered, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection also resigned. They were not on the Advisory Board. They resigned from full membership. And they have stayed out. One of the world’s largest and most successful hotlines is no longer a member of the global association.
INHOPE’s Advisory Board no longer exists. There is now a new CEO at INHOPE. Last year I became a member of the Board of the Canadian Centre. It continues to go from strength to strength.
Reasonable suspicions
Apologies for that slightly lengthy diversion but I trust readers will see Pornhub is fully aware of the mischief they can make whenever they wade in and try to connect with children’s groups.
The benefits to Pornhub
Promoting an on-device solution very obviously would benefit Pornhub’s business model in, at least, two distinct ways.
First because, assuming it ever does happen, on-device age verification will take years to come to fruition in the way Sarah and Bob say they want it to work.
Thus, from Pornhub’s perspective, if they can get Governments and Regulators to stop or slow down implementing or endorsing existing solutions while studies, research and tests are carried out to assess competing claims and approaches, the status quo is preserved that little bit longer.
And what does delay mean for Pornhub? Money in the bank. I think I can stop saying that now. You’ve probably got the point.
Secondly, perhaps sensing the game might finally be up and age verification for porn sites is unstoppable, Pornhub’s fall-back position seems to be to try to get everyone else to pay and be legally responsible for it.
Shifting the responsibility and liability
Pornhub say they would willingly institute a system to pick up on an age verification signal but, at 7.14 Bob makes clear everyone else further up the chain or elsewhere in the internet eco system would be responsible
“for the veracity (and truthfulness of that signal)”
In other words Pornhub couldn’t be blamed or be liable if everyone else hadn’t done their job properly and made sure the person arriving on Pornhub was indeed 18.
As long as Pornhub received the age signal and processed it correctly they would be in the clear.
A modern version of
“I was only following orders guv”
Parents, poor old parents, would be required, forced, to play a major role in solving Pornhub’s problem by ensuring their child was age verified before allowing them to use a device or a profile tied to that device. Unless and until the age verification process had been completed the device or profile would be blocked by default (8.50).
But we know how difficult it has been, at scale, to engage parents with these sorts of things, maybe particularly in households where devices are shared.
However, Bob’s and Sarah’s main targets, what they advanced as the unique and distinguishing feature of their “on-device” solution is the way it would engage device manufacturers, owners of operating systems and App Stores. That puts Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung in the frame, to name only some of the most famous.
For all that Pornhub dominates the world of porn they are still sub-microscopic when compared with the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung.
Chutzpah
Think about that. Pornhub create a problem, makes hundreds of millions of dollars from it, maybe billions over the years, and then they demand everybody else helps get them off the hook on which they impaled themselves. That’s chutzpah. Or “a brass neck” as we say in Yorkshire.
Device manufacturers, owners of operating systems and App Stores have no direct or obvious significant connection with porn. Yet they would be expected to do the age verification so Pornhub could pick up that age signal.
True enough Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung are all part of a larger system that delivers porn to kids, so I have no problem at all about asking them to contribute to finding better child protection solutions. On the contrary. But I have no illusions about how long it would take to get all the ducks in a row. Pornhub must know that.
It will be interesting to see how the new law in Utah pans out (requiring App Stores to verify age and secure parental consent) but we have to face it, the likely financial benefit device manufacturers, owners of operating systems and App Stores derive from their customers finding or visiting porn sites through their products or services will almost certainly be incalculably small as a percentage of their total turnover. Whereas Pornhub’s financial benefit is the opposite of incalculably small and is pretty much 100% of their turnover.
It is clear Pornhub are trying to shift a disproportionate part of the cost, liability and responsibility on to the shoulders of players who had little or no part in creating porn in the first place and who benefit from it hardly at all in relative terms.
ICMEC starts making moves
I have not been able to locate any comments or advice offered to the British authorities or the British public by Pornhub or ICMEC at any point before the age verification law was adopted by Parliament.
After the Bill became an Act, in October 2023 Ofcom opened a consultation headed “Guidance for service providers publishing pornographic content.” The consultation began on 5th December 2023 and closed on 5th March 2024. If you click on the link, you will see a list of responses. No sign of ICMEC but Pornhub (Aylo) is there.
On 27th June 2024, three months after Pornhub’s submission to Ofcom, ICMEC issued its first statement on age verification. That date matters because more than once (e.g. @23.09) Bob suggests to Rifkind that ICMEC independently formed its view on on-device age verification and then it went looking for others who agreed with them and also agreed to become part of a joint effort to promote that view.
This explanation could well be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But, given the sequence of events and the history I have outlined, I am sure some will wonder if, in fact, Pornhub reached their conclusion, based on their own assessment of their long-term best interests then they went looking for people to help promote it and somehow ended up at ICMEC’s door.
Crime Stoppers International
Bob Cunningham became an adviser to Crimestoppers International (CSI) in October 2024 and about then stood down as CEO of ICMEC. An interim CEO was appointed pending the appointment of a permanent replacement.
A couple of months later, in December 2024, CSI published a lengthy report on device-based age verification and parental controls. How did the writing and production of that particular report come about?
On ICMEC’s web site on 20th of December the CSI document is referred to as evidence that other NGOs have examined the age verification question and reached the same conclusion as ICMEC thereby adding to the seeming legitimacy of ICMEC’s June statement and the Draft Bill they published. That looks like a sleight of hand.
These were busy times for Pornhub’s PR Department. On 15th January 2025, CSI announced it was entering into a “Working Relationship” with Pornhub, oops, sorry, in this instance CSI specifically refer to them as “Ethical Capital Partners”.
Well you would, wouldn’t you?
Bob joins CSI. Pornhub joins CSI. Symmetrical.
ICMEC should clear the air
For all these reasons, ICMEC should make a public statement about the full extent of their involvement with Pornhub. This includes making clear when and how their relationship with them began. It’s a matter of transparency.
Have any other porn industry or tech interests which stand to benefit significantly from an on-device approach been helping ICMEC with this project financially or in other ways?
Maybe ICMEC received no financial help at all from Pornhub or anyone, either directly or indirectly, e.g. through third parties. Perhaps all the work and flying around they have done was financed from reserves or by a benefactor with no financial skin in the game. But there is bound to be scepticism.
I mentioned “indirectly” and “third parties” because, for example, when Bob met with Ofcom in London on 22nd January, he was accompanied by at least one normally US-based person who works for Venable LLP, a large DC law firm.
But Venable was not the firm that drafted the exceptionally detailed, lengthy amicus brief ICMEC submitted in the Supreme Court case against the State of Texas. This is a case where ICMEC lines up with tech, free speech, porn and privacy lobbyists. ICMEC aligns against children’s organizations and several State legislatures that are trying to protect children.
You couldn’t make it up.
Who acted for whom?
The amicus brief was prepared by Gibson Dunn, another large DC law firm. Did Venable and Gibson Dunn both act for ICMEC pro bono? Definitely a possibility. Or were they paid to help ICMEC? If so by whom? I notice on Sarah Bain’s Linkedin profile she is connected with a Partner at Venable. Bob Cunningham is also connected on Linkedin to the same person.
Then there’s the draft Bill I mentioned earlier. ICMEC sought to promote it in North Dakota and elsewhere. Who drafted it? Maybe it was done in-house. Maybe it wasn’t.
With the permission of the Supreme Court, as a final act of contrition, ICMEC should withdraw the amicus brief. It should do that if only because of the way it disparages alternative approaches to age verification.
Back to The Times interview
Just before I wind up this already far too long blog, I’ll go back to the Times interview. Rifkind mentions the way porn seems to have normalised forms of sexual violence and aggression against women and girls.
Asked if she thinks there are any moral aspects to her business (19.27) Sarah ducks the question. She simply asserted every act depicted on Pornhub is legal. Sarah previously said (17.19)
“I am not the arbiter of people’s adult consumption”.
Sarah, you are the arbiter because you are supplying it.
Robotically repeating all the content is legal is an evasion. The law, ethics and morals are not always aligned and they definitely are not aligned here.
If something was illegal it would likely not be moral or ethical to publish or distribute it. But the mere fact something is legal does not mean it is also bound to be moral or ethical.
There is a very long list of things which are legal but few people would regard as being even remotely ethical or moral. And here is where the incongruity of Pornhub and ICMEC teaming up comes into sharpest relief.
If you are involved in child protection or child welfare work you sometimes have to engage with all kinds of people in order to improve the online environment for kids or help victims. But there’s working engagements and there’s things like this.
ICMEC occupies high moral ground. By associating with a porn business in the way it has with Pornhub it risks eroding its position and looking stupid or naïve.
Perceptions matter
I am happy to say I am certain that, with the social capital and huge credibility ICMEC has built up over the years, together with the organization’s strong new leadership, ICMEC will get past this unfortunate episode.
As for Pornhub? They are not in this for the bouquets and harps, although I have wondered if “Aylo”, was another knowing joke.
“Destigmatising the porn industry”
In the course of the interview with Rifkind we learned Sarah had more than one reason for agreeing to do it.
This was disclosed at 24.48 when Sarah acknowledges her encounter with Rifkind hasn’t been
“an easy interview”
before going on to say (24.49)
“But how are we ever going to explain and destigmatise the industry if we are not transparent about it”.
Here’s a bit of free advice.
Forget it.
You have set yourself an unattainable goal.
With or without age verification, there are no foreseeable circumstances in which any business, or any person closely associated with a business that organizes the production or distribution of pornography will ever make the Rotary Club.
A wolf in wolf’s clothing
What’s the lesson I hope other children’s organizations will pick up from this blog?
If you are approached by or find yourself near a wolf wearing wolf’s clothing run the other way. It’s probably a wolf.
A little chronology
Before I conclude and referring back to my point about this blog turning into a mini-history, for completeness I now need to do another little detour.
As you have seen, mandating age verification for porn sites became law as part of the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 (OSA). However, the lengthy consultations, discussions and debates which took place about children, the online environment, web sites, and age checks stretch back at least to 2003 when Tony Blair’s Government launched a review of gambling policy.
This was around the same time the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was completing its passage through Parliament. That Act was the first serious attempt to modernise our criminal law to take account of the arrival of the internet. It began to address some of the new challenges it had created for the police and the courts. It’s when grooming as we now understand it was first established as a crime.
My point is, when the gambling policy review started, among Parliamentarians there was a much greater understanding of the internet as a locus for serious harm to children. This helped with lobbying around gambling and resulted in the insertion of key clauses in the Bill as it progressed through Westminster.
The gambling problem solved
Under the 2005/7 Gambling Acts the UK became the first country in the world to introduce age verification as a mandatory legal requirement for a service or product provided over the internet. Gambling done. Porn was next. Maybe it should have been the other way around, but in fact it worked to our advantage. A good precedent had been set. Nobody disputed that age verification was working very well to keep children off gambling web sites.
After 2007 it became impossible for a child to go on a UK gambling web site, tick a box to say they were 18 then, using a debit card (millions of kids from 11 upwards have them), blow their pocket money on a horse, football match or whatever. That’s what used to happen, even to the point of some kids being diagnosed as gambling addicts. Admittedly this is a different age verification use case, but it does illustrate that age verification carried out by the platform providing the service can be highly effective.
Age verification for pornography
After the online gambling rules kicked in and were seen to be working we had debates on and around the Byron Review, 2008, followed by the Bailey Review, 2011, and finally Claire Perry MP’s cross-party report in 2012. The latter was the decisive turning point. It led directly to the inclusion of a promise to introduce compulsory age checks on porn sites in the Conservative Party’s Manifesto for the 2015 General Election. When the global history of online child protection comes to be written Claire Perry deserves a special place of honour.
With all-Party support, the Conservatives’ age verifiction promise was fulfilled in the Digital Economy Act 2017. But it was scuppered at the very last minute by the malign intervention of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He refused to allow the Secretary of State to name a commencement date for the law and regulations Parliament had approved. It is not completely unprecedented for a Government, effectively, to cancel a law in this way but it is very rare. Johnson having departed the scene the process eventually resumed and resulted in the OSA 2023.”
