Cameron: ‘Porn sites must block children or face closure’

Pornography websites must introduce age-checks or face being shut down, David Cameron has said.

The Prime Minister announced that a consultation will be launched in the autumn to establish the best way to further restrict children’s access to pornography.

A Childline poll before the General Election found that almost one in ten 12 to 13-year-olds were worried that they were addicted to pornography.

Age restrictions

Mr Cameron said his Government is working to make “the internet a safer place for children”.

He added: “the next step in this campaign is to curb access to harmful pornographic content, which is currently far too widely available.

“I want to see age restrictions put into place or these websites will face being shut down.”

The minister for internet safety and security, Joanna Shields, said UK internet filtering is better than elsewhere but, “we remain acutely aware of the risks and dangers that young people face online. This is why we are committed to taking action to protect children from harmful content.

Exposure

“Companies delivering adult content in the UK must take steps to make sure these sites are behind age verification controls.”

Statistics by internet analytics company Comscore highlight that in May this year, one in five under-18s in the UK visited a pornography website. One in ten of all visitors to adult sites were children.

A Childline poll this year revealed that 18 per cent of children have seen shocking or upsetting images on the internet.

Pornography block

In July, Sky released figures showing that its automatic online pornography block has had significant take-up since it was rolled out earlier this year.

More than 70 per cent of customers chose not to opt out of Sky’s Broadband Shield, which is designed to block content deemed unsuitable for children under the age of 13.

Previously, when customers had to take action to set up the filter, less than five per cent actually did so.

In 2013, David Cameron warned that easy access to online pornography is ‘corroding childhood’ and urged internet service providers to adopt automatic filters in order to protect children.

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