Understanding the Online Safety Act: Implications for Adult Sites
Legislation,Other News
Ofcom calls for biometric age checks to stop children seeing adult content
Tough new guidance from Ofcom aims to protect children from seeing online pornography. The Online Safety Act, passed last autumn, restricts underage access to adult content. New details have been published explaining how this can be done through age assurance, giving digital identity platforms like Luciditi a frontline role in helping content providers stay on the right side of the law.
On average, children first see online pornography at age 13 – although nearly a quarter discover it by age 11 (27%), and one in 10 as young as nine (10%), according to research. Before turning 18, nearly eight in 10 youngsters (79%) have encountered violent pornography showing coercive, degrading or pain-inducing sex acts.
The Online Safety Act (OSA) aims to protect children by making the internet in the UK the safest place online in the world. Under the OSA, sites and apps showing adult content will have to ensure that children can’t access their platform.
Highly effective age checks
The new law has been described as a skeleton act. The bare bones approved by parliament will be fleshed out one topic at a time by the communications watchdog Ofcom.
Ofcom’s first update, last November, focused on protecting people from online harms. Now, its second period of consultation and guidance aims to protect children from online pornography through what it describes as “highly effective age checks.” The new guidance looks in detail at the age assurance tech that providers will need to adopt.
The porn industry has long been an early adopter of innovation – from online credit card transactions to live streaming. Age assurance, tried and trusted in other sectors, is unlikely to pose any technical challenges whether providers develop it in-house or adopt an existing product.
Businesses flouting the OSA can be fined up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue, and their directors jailed for up to two years. Nevertheless, the vast majority of adult content providers will be committed to maintaining a profitable, stable, and compliant operation that avoids tangling with the law. They don’t want kids looking at inappropriate material any less than anyone else.
The difficulties of staying in-house
To comply with the OSA, providers must introduce age assurance – through age estimation, age verification or a combination of both.
In most cases, adults will be able to access a site through age estimation tech. Smart AI assesses a selfie in estimating whether a user is at least five years older than 18. Users who are 18 or thereabouts will be asked to verify their age through personal identity data confirming their date of birth.
The big question for both providers and users is who should oversee the selfies and data, providers or third-party specialists?
If developed in-house, estimation and verification can bring challenges perhaps unique to the porn industry. Criminals target users by surreptitiously activating the camera on their device and threatening to release the footage if money isn’t handed over. Just the threat of this can lead to a payout, even without evidence that the camera was actually activated.
Mindful of a risk of blackmail or other breaches of anonymity, users may be reluctant to send a selfie to a porn site. Asking them to give up their personal data poses an even bigger challenge. Explicit website Pornhub said regulations requiring the collection of “highly sensitive personal information” could jeopardise user safety.
Social media users are already sceptical – memes have started appearing showing someone accessing a porn site and being asked for a selfie before they enter. In the US, similar worries about age checks led users to access porn sites via a virtual private network (VPN). In Utah, demand for VPNs surged by 847% the day after new age checks came into effect.
Staying in-house means having to overcome widespread concerns. Providers who are legitimate, established, and successful but owned by an international parent group may particularly struggle to persuade British users that their selfie and data will be permanently and properly safeguarded.
Expertise from Luciditi
There is an easy, trusted alternative to the in-house route. Digital ID platforms such as Luciditi create an ‘air-gapped’ solution. A specialist in age assurance, Luciditi is British, well-established, and trusted by the UK government as Britain’s first supplier of a digital PASS proof of age card. Its developers, who have a background in digitally managing sensitive NHS records, have brought Luciditi to a range of industries. Users are already sending selfies and data to Luciditi for other age-restricted products or services.
Ofcom suggests that age assurance could involve tech associated with facial age estimation, photo ID matching and open banking all of which Luciditi already perform. Luciditi securely processes all selfies and data and instantly destroys it after use. Nothing is given to a third-party beyond an automated nod that a user is an adult. This meets Ofcom’s requirement for providers to take care in safeguarding privacy.
Prevention of tracking also an important factor, not just by the site operator, but also by the data source. So if a user chooses Open Banking to prove their age, your bank can’t see “why” they needed it or “whom” they shared it with – often called a “double blind” verification. Having certified systems handling privacy, anonymity and security is essential if it is ever to be trusted by users.
“We’re perfectly placed to support the adult content industry with age assurance”, said Ian Moody, Luciditi CEO, “our in-depth experience in supporting online providers of other age-restricted products means we can quickly bring sites up to the new standards set by Ofcom.”
Embedded in a provider’s site, Luciditi’s tech would operate behind the scenes, independently overseeing access. Providers could welcome new users with a message saying that access is managed by a reputable, independent third-party, safeguarding anonymity. This would assure users that they are not sending anything directly to the owners of a porn site. Additionally, providers can embed Luciditi across all their age-restricted products and services, whether relating to adult content or not.
User-generated content
As an established digital identity platform, Luciditi supports individuals as well as businesses. Users download the Luciditi app, which is free and easy to use. This lets them create their own digital identity wallet, safely storing their selfie and data and letting them breeze through an age check in a couple of taps.
This facility will benefit providers who host adult user-generated content and who need to know that performers are aged 18 or over. This issue isn’t covered by the latest guidance but will be included in Ofcom’s next update, due in spring 2024. Providers who choose to act early can future-proof their business now by addressing this issue as part of their wider approach to age assurance.
No alternatives
During the current process of consultation, which ends on March 5th, Ofcom will not be looking at softer options. For providers looking to retain their audience, age assurance is the only show in town. “Our practical guidance sets out a range of methods for highly effective age checks”, said Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom’s Chief Executive, “we’re clear that weaker methods – such as allowing users to self-declare their age – won’t meet this standard.”
The OSA effectively fired a starting gun. The race is now on for adult content providers to accept its provisions, take appropriate action, and adopt the tech they need before the law is enforced in or after 2025.
It’s not just about completing the work before the new measures are actively enforced. It’s about acting quickly to maintain a competitive position. Businesses that build trust early will seize the advantage in developing their market share. It’s not just the new law that providers need to be mindful of, it’s each other.
Want to know more?
Luciditi’s Age Assurance technology can help meet some of the challenges presented by the OSA. If you would like to know more, Contact us for a chat today.
