AGE-VERIFICATION SYSTEM FROM NEXT YEAR TO ACCESS THE INTERNET

THE UK government will introduce compulsory identification checks by Aprilnext year to ensure those viewing pornography online are over age 18.

UK Digital Minister Matt Hancock signed the commencement of the Digital Economy Act on Monday which will eventually ensure those who cannot “normally” access porn are unable to do so online.

It will mean ID checks for viewers and includes provisions for fines of more than $400,000 or five per cent of their turnover for providers. The act will also punish bots used to snap up and resell concert tickets and raise the penalty for online piracy from two to ten years.

However it’s not yet known how the scheme will work in practice. One suggestion includes making users input credit card details before granting access. Another earlier suggestion included screening users via the electoral roll.

The move is designed to stop children accessing pornography inadvertently. A Net Children Go Mobile report said nearly 20 per cent of 9-16 year olds in the UK had been exposed to sexual images online.

Critics said the timescale is “unrealistic” and raises potential privacy issues for users, while leaving pornography on sites such as Tumblr and social media unfiltered.

Childnet CEO Will Gardner — who works to make the internet safer for children — said the aim is to replicate the conditions in the real world.

In February last year, Executive Officer of advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia, Jon Lawrence, said there was “potential for real damage” if porn consumption sites were linked to electoral data and made public.

But the reality is that there will always be readily available porn on the internet no matter what you do,” he said. “These sorts of top down approaches simply don’t work, they’re trivial to circumvent. Any 13-year-old could do so ... without much difficulty.

Sources:

BBC

GOVERNMENTS TRYING HARD TO KILL INTERNET FREEDOM

If you’re reading this, you’re one of the 3.6 billion-odd people who use the internet. But an increasingly concerning number of governments are treating access to the internet like a service that can be switched on and off on a whim.

After millions of years of evolution, we have arrived at the point where the development of technology ensures the supremacy of humans to the detriment of most other species. Even so, Nature still applies the “survival of the fittest rule, so the supremacy is not universally beneficial. This means humans have a quality of life that ranges from luxurious to pitiful. Some humans use technology to oppress,others become oppressed through being denied access to technology.

The internet:
Without getting into the debate of the internet with a capital I or a small i, we have seen a widespread tendency of governments depriving their citizens of access to all internet services like the way Brazil Government did to WhatsApp and Cameroon Government did to Web pages to appear in French but not English

Freedom:
In this technology-enabled, communications-networked world, the word “freedom” is integral to the expression of rights. Freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom from slavery, freedom of access to information… however, inherent in the need to stand united is the requirement to give up some freedom of choice by handing the power of the individual over to the collective leadership.Individuals agree to be constrained by the rules of the community, to adopt standards of behaviour that are limited to the defined norms. They even agree to be punished for stepping outside the boundaries.

l wish to conclude without much into it but a short piece of what needs to be improved and prevented if it has transpired to your Country. Thank you,let's meet again tomorrow.