LOS ANGELES — AgeGO is reaching out to adult site operators with its compliance solution for U.K. traffic that is subject to the nation’s new age verification law.
The U.K. government recently announced that its age verification law for adult sites will be enforced beginning July 15, after which all adult sites targeting U.K. consumers must require users to prove they are over 18 years old in order to access content.
“According to the U.K. government’s official communication, porn sites must check the age of users or risk facing sanctions. This new approach is the first of its kind in the world, and puts in place the same protections that exist offline,” an AgeGO representative revealed. “Stricter measures will be put in place to protect user’s data and privacy [and] the U.K. will become the first country in the world to bring in this type of age verification for online pornography.”
Online businesses will need to implement age verification for their websites if they fall into one or more of the following categories:
- Free adult content website e.g., tube site
- Membership paysite for adult content
- Video on demand streaming of adult video content
- Adult anime (cartoon) content
- Retailing 18+ products e.g., adult DVDs, adult magazines, adult books, etc
- Advertiser/affiliate landing page to sell or describe adult products
- Blog featuring adult content, adult retail products
- Adult dating/hookup website
- Live cam website that includes nude, semi-nude models and/or sexual acts
- Escort services websites
- Any other website displaying adult content
Websites that fail to implement age verification technology face having payment services withdrawn or being completely blocked for U.K. users.
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will be responsible for ensuring compliance with the new laws and have confirmed it will begin enforcement following the current implementation period allowing websites time to comply with the new regulations.
“Regarding user privacy, age verification solutions should only be concerned with verifying age, not identity,” the representative explained. “In addition, providers should comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) standards.”
AgeGO’s age verification solution is tailored for adult businesses and offers several methods of verification including:
- Verification by scanning of photo identification of a current passport or current drivers’ license
- Verification with a U.K. mobile phone and its 3G carrier or via an SMS text
- Verification with credit card details
- And other methods that will be detailed in the coming weeks
According to the company, privacy is of paramount importance to AgeGO, so no personal data are stored of verified users.
“AgeGO is quick and easy to implement because it is a self-service platform. Business owners can sign up and upload their website’s logo and instantly create branded AgeGO widget tags that are responsive and work across all devices (desktop, mobile and tablet). Integration is as simple as adding a short JavaScript code to the business owner’s website.”
“Once implemented, when a U.K. user visits the website, the AgeGO age verification widget will appear on the homepage, blurring out the homepage’s content,” the representative concluded. “The user then selects one of the verification methods and follows a few prompted steps to complete the verification process. If the verification is successful the user gets instant access to the full content on the website.”
Businesses also receive additional benefits from using AgeGO including access to advanced statistics in their dashboard for control over the age verification flow to improve user pass rate and control costs.
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