New porn laws coming into force from 15 July will require all adults in the UK who are accessing a pornography website to prove they are over the age of 18.
The legislation is intended to stop children seeing X-rated content, but it has faced criticism from campaigners who say that inputting personal and sensitive data and documents, such as a passport or driving license, is a risk to users’ privacy.
Now HuffPost UK has been told by one age verification company, Yoti, that users will have the option to verify their ID instead by taking a selfie instead.
Yoti is the owner of the ‘Prove My Age’ software – the ID software of choice for a major player in the porn industry, MindGeek, which owns the PornHub, RedTube, YouPorn and Brazzers websites.
MindGeek has set up its own age verification portal – AgeID – but will rely on Yoti’s third party technology to make it work, as required by the government.
As has been widely reported, AgeID will only admit users who input official documentation or purchase a physical ‘porn pass’, purchasable from a shopkeeper who has verified your age in person against an ID.
But Yoti, which will be in charge of running the technology from July, has confirmed to HuffPost UK that users will be given two digital options.
The first involves setting up an encrypted account and uploading your passport, driving license or other ID document. This is a one-time signup – your documents will be digitally stored for future logins.
The second option for those using the Yoti software is to take a live selfie, using the selfie function on your smartphone or a webcam on your desktop computer.
Yoti ‘Age Scan’ technology will scan your face and determine how old you look. If you pass the facial verification test, you’ll be referred back to the porn website. This option is only open to those aged 28 and above, Yoti claims.
Robin Tombs, CEO of Yoti, told HuffPost UK: “Yoti Age Scan is configurable to set whatever threshold a business or regulator requires for instance, requiring those over 18 to be estimated as at least 25 – a buffer of 7 years. Where someone is over 18 but appears to be under 25, they can use either the Yoti app, where their account is anchored with a verified ID document.”
The company says the image capture is not viewed by a human and is deleted as soon as the check is completed – but the function does gives pause for thought, both on security and efficacy. Will porn users feel more concerned about submitting a selfie of their pre-porn face or their passport details?
[Read More: UK Porn Block: How Will The New Laws Work?]
Yoti is confident in its “anti-spoofing measures”, which are designed to prevent someone from using an existing photograph or mask, says Tombs. “It has been developed to spot the difference between a live human and a still image.”
People have already pointed out an obvious digital loophole in the new porn law: that anyone with a VPN – a tech-savvy teenager, for example – might be able to “virtually relocate” to another country to avoid the UK-based block.
Nor does the block apply to websites where less than a third of content is X-rated. So sites including Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr, where some users do upload pornography, against content guidelines, will not be subject to ID checks. When Reddit closed down a primary subreddit hosting deepfake porn, for example, it had 90,000 users.
Despite the government pushing back the start date for the scheme more than four times, a YouGov survey in March found most Britons do not know about the block – with more than three quarters of respondents saying they were unaware of the new checks.