Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2019

The Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2019 is a statutory instrument issued under the powers given by the Digital Economy Act 2017. It defines the criteria to determine which websites would have been required to implement an age verification scheme,[1] as part of the proposed UK Internet age verification system, the implementation of which was eventually abandoned in October 2019.[2]

Definition

For the purpose of the regulations, a site is defined as making pornographic material available on a commercial basis for the purposes of the Act if:

  • the pornographic material is available only as paid content or
  • the pornographic material is available for free, but those posting the material are (or reasonably expect to be) remunerated and
    • the age-verification regulator cannot reasonably assume less than one third of the site's content is pornographic or
    • the site is advertised as a pornographic site

The government's explanatory notes to the draft regulations laid before Parliament in 2018 note that "the focus of the legislation should be pornographic websites, rather than popular social media platforms on which pornographic material is only a small part of the overall content".[3]

Implementation
Main article: Proposed UK Internet age verification system

The British Board of Film Classification was appointed as the age-verification regulator in 2018.[4]

After numerous false starts, the government abandoned the scheme. On 16 October 2019, the culture secretary Nicky Morgan stated that the government had abandoned the mandate altogether, in favour of replacing it with a forthcoming wider scheme of Internet regulation.[2][5][6]

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References
  1. Burgess, Matt (15 March 2019). "This is how age verification will work under the UK's porn law". Wired UK. ISSN 1357-0978. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
  2. Waterson, Jim (16 October 2019). "UK drops plans for online pornography age verification system". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  3. "Explanatory Memorandum to the Online Pornography (Commercial Basis) Regulations 2018" (PDF). gov.uk. 2018.
  4. Hill, Rebecca (17 October 2018). "UK.gov to press ahead with online smut checks (but expects £10m in legals in year 1)". www.theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 21 March 2019.
  5. "UK's controversial 'porn blocker' plan dropped". BBC News. 16 October 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  6. "Written statements". UK Parliament. Archived from the original on 16 October 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2019.

See also


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