Prime Minister Announces Opt-in Porn Policy for UK
The UK government hopes to stop children wandering into the darker corners of the web.
The UK has been kicking around the idea of blocking pornography and unsavory content at an ISP level for quite some time now. Today, the country finally announced a decision on the issue. The BBC reports that Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the country is putting in place filters to prevent children from accessing porn on the internet.
Cameron said that the six providers of 90 percent of the UK's public WiFi (O2, Virgin Media, Sky, Nomad, BT and Arqiva) have agreed to apply family friendly filters across the public WiFi network "wherever children are likely to be present." What's more, phone providers have also agreed to put adult content filters onto phones automatically. To have these removed, you'll need to prove to your provider that you are over 18.
The changes are coming to home internet, too. The government has reached an agreement with TalkTalk, Virgin, Sky and BT that will ensure family friendly filters are available at an ISP-level. When someone sets up a new broadband account, the family friendly filter settings will be automatically selected. Clicking 'Next' will switch them on and they will apply to any device on your network. They can only be disabled by the account holder.
These in-home filters will be in place by the end of the year, while solutions for WiFi and phone service will be in play by the end of the summer.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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eiskrystal Because children seeing the act that created them is the biggest threat England has right now!!!1!!Reply
Meh, it will come out some time in 2050 when they finally get organised and there will already be three ways around it by next week.
It will be fun watching how they define "porn" too. -
back_by_demand Everything still goes in the UK too, all that happens is the ISP will ask if you want adult filters on or off, you say "off" and cheerily go back to browsing fuq.com and unloading your electrolytesReply -
damianrobertjones I'm thinking that if you request to see pron your name will appear on a list!Reply -
Vorador2 UK Government: policing your kids so you don't have to.Reply
Next step: potty training with Mr Cameron.
Mr Cameron is always watching you. To protect you from porn. Porn is evil. Sex is evil. -
elitemarksman Because you aren't a fan of porn everyone else should have to go through an extra step to opt in?Reply
If you don't want to see porn why don't you just not view it? -
Akizu Another brilliant idea... Now people will complain that's its stupid they have to "opt in" to have their internet uncensored. Other people will complain that not all of the porn is being filtered and will want to sue their ISPs for it. Maybe some non-porn websites will get "accidentally" filtered too just to spice things up a little...Reply
I wonder when we will see some news like "13 year old figured out how to circumvent ISP porn filter"
Its just like that law that forces websites to inform you that they use cookies... Completely pointless.