UK Tech Firms Sue Gov't To Revive Scrapped Porn Ban Age-Checks

Last October, after two years of delays caused by technological mishaps, privacy fears, and other political concerns, the United Kingdom simply gave up on its plan to block porn sites for anyone under 18—after spending the equivalent of $2.5 million to figure out how to put the ban in place.  Just four months later, however, four British technology firms are suing the government to keep the porn ban alive, saying that U.K. Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan engaged in an “abuse of power” by scrapping the age verification plan. The four companies also want about $4 million in damages to cover the costs they say they incurred developing online age-checking systems, according to a report Thursday by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper.  The four firms, AgeChecked Ltd, VeriMe, AVYourself and AVSecure, argue that because the age-based porn ban was passed by Parliament as part of the 2017 Digital Economy Act, the government had the power to delay implementation of the law but not cancel it altogether. Stuart Lawley, CEO of AVSecure, claimed to The Telegraph that he, personally, had lost “millions” developing age-checking software that will now go unused. “We would sooner they issue a new start date and I would drop my claims and get on with it,” Lawley told the paper. “We are millions of pounds out of pocket, me personally millions; we have people who don’t have jobs anymore as a result of this.” But Morgan herself has claimed that the age-verification law is not really dead. Instead, she wants it folded into a new “online harms” bill supposedly being drafted by the government this year, according to the Telegraph report. The new law would create an entirely new regulatory agency that would oversee online content—but even if the online harms law is approved by Parliament, it could take two or three more years to get the new online regulator up and running. Even as the U.K. scrapped its porn ban, at least for now, the worldwide trend toward blocking online porn sites continues, as AVN.com has reported. Australia and New Zealand, among other countries, are now formulating their own “age-verification” systems to block adult sites. Photo By Roger Green/Wikimedia Commons Public Domain