The government wanted to force these sites to check the age of their users, to prevent minors from accessing them. Much criticized on this project, he finally gave up.
The project definitely turned into a fiasco. At the end of 2017, the British parliament passed a law requiring pornographic sites to check the age of Internet users wishing to connect to it. After two years of trying to set up this system, full of polemics, the government finally gave up.
After repeatedly postponing the implementation of this project, he announced Wednesday, October 16 that it will not happen – it was then scheduled for the end of the year. Nicky Morgan, Secretary of State for Digital, announced that the issue of filtering would be reconsidered under another bill related to the dangers of digital technology.
Concerns for privacy
The British government has begun to talk about the idea of imposing this filtering on pornographic sites, under threat of blockage, as early as 2015. It immediately raised questions and worries. How, concretely, to make sure of the age of a Net surfer? Should we check his identity? How? And in this case, how to protect the data, ultrasensitive, amateurs of pornographic sites? Moreover, several experts felt that this system would not be enough to prevent minors from accessing pornography.
In France, the Secretary of State for Gender Equality, Marlene Schiappa, spoke in September 2018 of her desire to impose "Very important filters" pornographic sites. An interministerial mission has since begun working on the subject and should "To render by the end of the year both a diagnosis and an action plan"explained in July the State Secretariat for Digital World.