Louisiana cracks down on porn by making sites require IDs to verify age | Tech News

In the US state of Louisiana, people who want to access pornographic websites must now provide legal proof that they are 18 or older.

Any porn site that doesn’t check that users are adults can now be prosecuted in the state.

The legislation, criticized by internet privacy activists, took effect this week after being introduced last year by Republican Laurie Schlegel.

“Internet porn is extreme and graphic, our kids are just a click away,” she tweeted.

“It’s not your dad’s playboy.

“If the porn companies refuse to take responsibility, then we must hold them accountable.”

The legislation prompted major porn sites to adopt Louisiana’s LA Wallet system, which allows residents of the state to hold digital driver’s licenses or ID cards.

It includes a requirement not to retain user information to mitigate privacy concerns.

Louisiana bill could hint at UK’s long-awaited Online Safety Act Will try to protect children from adult content.

The proposed law – which aims to regulate online content to help keep users, especially children, safe, and hold companies accountable for material – Will make companies use age check measures Protect children under 18 from pornography.

read more:
Why the Online Safety Act is so controversial

The Online Safety Act May Not Be Too Little, But It’s Surely Too Late

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What’s in the Online Safety Act?

Law ‘must take privacy rights into consideration’

The NSPCC told Sky News that communications regulator Ofcom should be empowered to enforce minimum standards of age guarantees, balancing protection of children’s and adults’ privacy rights.

“Viewing pornography at an early age can adversely affect children’s understanding of sex, consent, and healthy relationships,” they said.

“That’s why it’s so important that we have an Online Safety Act that forces online porn sites to introduce effective age guarantees that provide the highest level of confidence in users’ ages, while also taking into account the privacy rights of adults.”

Critics have expressed doubts about the usefulness of age verification on adult sites.

Online safety expert Richard DeVille told Sky News it was the result of politicians seeking “simple solutions to rather complex problems”.

“We haven’t really addressed the core issue here, which is proper authentication,” he said.

“Even if we trust the data to be handled properly, how can we trust that it’s being used by myself and not by my daughter or someone like that?

“The government needs to go door-to-door to collect people’s irises and fingerprints.”

He added: “To move forward we have to go back to some outdated values ​​- good guidance, advice to children, moral training and ethics. The internet is a scary place and there are some scary things but through good education, you can navigate it safely.”

Homemade porn is an ‘extra challenge’

Charlotte Aynsley, head of school safety software company Impero, told Sky News that age verification on adult websites had taken a long time to implement, but there was more work to be done.

“It’s been discussed since David Cameron first proposed it in 2017 – in fact it was supposed to be included in the Digital Economy Act 2017 but it was never implemented,” she said.

“However, there is an added challenge surrounding self-generated pornography, as a lot of it doesn’t just exist on commercial pornography sites.

“Most online pornography is user-generated, viewed on sites like Twitter and TikTok, or shared between individuals, so it can still be accessed even with age verification.”

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