UK pornography permit: do you want one? - sinparty blog

The UK government has talked about a porn licence since 2016. What is the truth behind the news?

Although you may not have heard of the porn licence in the UK, very few people have. Although it has the potential to limit access to pornography in the UK, the execution is not perfect.

We're going all out to keep you up-to-date on the UK porn licence. We'll be looking at:

• The concept behind porn licensing

• Imagine a porn licence.

• There are good chances that a UK porn licence will be in effect

Keep you informed about the latest developments in the skin industry

What is the UK government's motivation for introducing a porn licence?

The idea of age verification checks for people who access porn in the UK in 2016 was first discussed. It was then codified in law by the Digital Economy Act of April 2017.

It was simple: the UK government wanted to ban anyone under 18 from accessing porn. We believe this is a noble cause, and SinParty supports it.

This is a difficult problem that no one has yet solved, and the British government tried for over two decades to solve it.

What is a UK porn licence?

The idea was never realised, so no one knows how it would work.

Although it had been weeks since its introduction, there was still no solid evidence about how a porn licence, or age verification, would work.

The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), decided to outsource the establishment of the scheme to verify every Brit who accesses porn to the British Board of Film Classification. Ironically, the British Board of Film Classification was established originally to protect freedom in the UK media.

It looked like this:

• Companies could verify an individual's age by using a credit card, submitting an ID online or going to a shop asking for a porn licence.

• Age verification companies would issue tokens, passes, or any other asset that would be their online ticket or porn licence.

• To prove that they had done it, they would need to enter a code/password when they visited a porn website.

This could lead to problems such as having every porn site on the internet accept this age verification check. To accept each age verification, you'd need to have every porn site.

What sites would need to be subject to age verification checks

As it stood in 2017, social media was not required to be used for these checks.

All of us know that there is absolutely no porn on social media. You, Twitter, Reddit and Twitch?

Sites that are less than one third porn would not have to go through the checks. They wouldn't have to verify your porn licence if the site was not marketed as a porn website.

Although they found a way to make it not require an Instagram licence, it didn't really accomplish the goal. It is much easier to find porn via social media than on the internet.

What is the UK porn licence?

The DCMS thankfully dropped the entire crock in October 2019. This would have been the first time that any government had checked age to access porn anywhere on the planet.

They stopped the plan and made sure your privacy was secured. Imagine the database of porn licence companies being hacked. Are you going to tell your mum that you aren't pure and innocent, and you have a cheeky wank at big-boobed MILFs.

It is as it stands now in May 2021 that you don't have to get a porn licence or prove your age to view porn online.

Is there a future porn licence?

Recently, there was a new discussion around a law known as the Online Safety Bill.

The British parliament is currently discussing a law that does not include a porn licence. This makes us very happy.

It's not over, however. The minister responsible for it said that he is not against the addition of the law.

As it stands, the proposed law focuses on stopping children from accidentally accessing porn. Although it acknowledges that porn is often shared via social media, the law does not address this. Sites that feature user-generated content could face restrictions, such as photo and video sharing and live streaming.

SinParty would be covered by this remit. We'd be happy for any law to come our way.

Are porn licences possible?

We expect the porn licence to work in the following way: we check the IP address. This is easy for websites to do, but is not difficult for individuals to do.

A website can only do so much to determine your exact location. It can be difficult to determine where porn is being accessed if a VPN tool is used. Similar to the people in countries that have porn illegally like Saudi Arabia or Indonesia.

What is a UK porn licence?

Although there is a law that allows for this, the UK porn licence is not currently available. The whole plan was dropped by the government in 2019 because it couldn't organise a gang bang at a brothel.

This idea is still alive and well. Are you able to voice your concerns to your MP? Let us know how you feel about it.