UK Age Verification Efforts Continue Despite Recent Setback (XBIZ)

Read the full article by Stephen Yagielowicz at XBIZ.com

LOS ANGELES — One of the biggest challenges facing the online adult entertainment industry over the past few years has been keeping abreast of the U.K.’s efforts to mandate age verification before allowing the country’s consumers to access age-restricted materials.

Questions of how and when implementation would occur; which AV solutions would enable compliance; and even which sites would be required to comply, led to some confusion for website operators, as well as new opportunities for service providers — but this all came to a halt when after several delays, the U.K. shelved its plans.

But not so fast.

An “Urgent Question” has been raised in Parliament — and the answer may have adult website operators worried.

According to Parliament’s official website, “if an urgent or important matter arises which an MP believes requires an immediate answer from a government minister, they may apply to ask an urgent question,” and in this case the pointed question posed by MP Margot James concerned “the future of age verification for online pornography.”

James explained that the sudden cancellation of the AV rollout “came as a shock to children’s charities, the age verification industry, the regulator and the online pornography industry itself, all of which were ready for, and expecting, the age verification regulations to be brought into law by the end of this year.”

The full exchange is available here.