Online age verification/Report of Expert Panel for the DCMS

The report of the expert panel for the DCMS, entitled "Identifying the Routes by which Children View Pornography Online: Implications for Future Policy-makers Seeking to Limit Viewing", is a report published in November 2015 and largely authored by academics from the Oxford Internet Institute.

The full report can be downloaded from GOV.UK here.

As noted in the report, there is some concern that the level of “certainty” when talking about some of the research may be lower than is generally expected of policy discussions, due to ethical issues in conducting research about children and pornography. It thus implicitly notes that caution should be exercised with regard to all studies which claim to provide statistics about how children interact with pornography.

Prevalence

The report cautioned that they could “not been able to find any recent UK studies which provide clear figures for online and offline viewing for all children up to the age of 18” and that, in reference to the studies they do have, the images asked about are generally “sexual images” and not strictly limited to those which would fall within a legal definition of pornography (may encompass advertising, music videos, etc).

The report notes that, when a study is time limited (i.e. asks whether a child has seen sexual images “within the last 12 months” rather than just “ever”), it will produce much lower viewing figures. It notes that just 2% of 9-10 year olds report seeing sexual images under these conditions, rising to 9% for those aged 11-12, and up to 25% amongst 13-14 and 15-16 year olds. The take-away from this is that regulation should be proportional. To justify this legislation, the Government has been relying upon figures indicating that “half” of children are exposed to porn, but if - as these figures might suggest - this “exposure” is a one-time thing and not ‘regular’, it’s worth questioning whether the Government’s response is proportional (especially when considering the huge privacy risk for people that AV tools pose).

The report also suggests that, contrary to expectations, pornographic websites are not the primary route for viewing most sexual images for children, and that “traditional mass media still play an important role in children’s exposure”. As it notes, “it is quite possible that the sexual content children and young people are exposed to most frequently is actually a component of ordinary everyday mainstream culture rather than accessed illicitly via adult websites”.

The report highlights the ethical challenges present in breaking down the specific types of pornographic content viewed by children, but does note that “images or video that show sex in a violent way is viewed least often, with 2% of respondents saying they have seen such material”.

Social contexts

The report highlights the fact that, despite contradictory statistics, “more children are likely to report accidental rather than deliberate viewing of pornography”, but goes on to stress that “some caution should be exercised in interpreting these figures as some respondents may feel embarrassed to admit that they deliberately looked for pornography”.

“From a policy perspective it is worth considering which of these contexts for viewing pornography are most significant: limiting the exposure of children and young people who do not wish to view pornographic materials may be somewhat easier than preventing access by those determined to seek it out, whilst if others are being coerced into viewing pornography, this suggests social and educational interventions are needed”.

Photo and video-sharing platforms Later in the document - “of note is that the few youngest children who did report seeing sexual images reported doing so either on TV or in films or via video-sharing platforms such as YouTube”.

Adverts

The report identifies (Pg. 12) that “pop-up adverts have been identified as a significant source of unwanted sexual images by under-18s”. And noted that the UK Net Children Go Mobile study found these to be the most common way of viewing images amongst the 13-14 year old age group.

It notes that there is no statutory ban on advertising pornography in digital media in the UK, and conduct of UK websites and advertisers is governed by self-regulatory Advertising Codes produced by the UK Committees of Advertising Practice. The report identifies the difficulty in regulating this sector due to the sheer number of stakeholders, “and the fact that many adverts on foreign websites will be beyond UK advertising regulation”.

Interpersonal messaging apps and services

The report also highlights the prevalence of IM apps for direct communication between kids - Snapchat, WhatsApp and the like. As it notes, “in each of these cases, content is hard to regulate as would be a real-time face-to-face conversation”.

The report notes that “person-to-person direct messaging does seem to be a way to share sexual images” but that this is mainly for older age groups - 11% of 15-16 year olds compared to 4% of 9-16 year olds.

Social network sites

Significantly, “in the Net Children Go Mobile study, social network sites were the most common source for 9-16 year old children to see sexual images with 7% stating that they had experienced this”. The report specifically mentions Twitter and Tumblr and notes that they allow adult content when labeled as such.

“Dark web”

“There is at present no reliable evidence of under-18s using the dark web to gain access to pornographic materials. This does not mean that it does not happen, and indeed, given likely contrarian responses to perceived government censorship or surveillance there will almost certainly be a number of under-18s experimenting with Tor or similar services. It is, however, worth noting that there are many easier channels for less tech-savvy teenagers to access such content and it is unlikely that porn would be the main draw in attracting minors to such sites. Ultimately, such spaces are very difficult to observe or research, let alone regulate, and a recent report from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology concluded that efforts to ban online anonymity systems such as Tor would be both publicly unacceptable and technically infeasible”.

Harms associated with viewing pornographic images

The report notes the fact that there is some limited meta-analyses which suggest that “one study of 10-15 year olds in the US found that those who intentionally viewed X-rated materials were nearly six times more likely than others to report sexually aggressive behaviour”. Of course, there are difficulties here in establishing causality with this information. Whether the attitude or the seeking out such material comes first is an unanswered question. But, critically, it is worth noting that this talks about deliberate access of material, and AV is not going to stop such deliberate access, thus cannot curb this “harm” even if it exists.

For more information on “harms”, the report cites a report prepared by Miranda Horvath for the Children’s Commissioner for England entitled “Basically, Porn is Everywhere”.

Policy Challenges and Opportunities

Cites Lessig’s modalities of regulation.

Talks about restricting payment providers as intermediaries to enforce compliance in the exact way that the legislation later implemented this.

One area of legal intervention proposed by the report that the Government does not appear to have considered is the statutory provision of sexual health education across all secondary schools. The report notes that a recent review of PSHE by the Department of Education concluded that it should remain a non-statutory subject without standardised programmes of study. The report highlights the “great value in designing a curriculum that has a core focus on relationships and how they affect sex, including discussion of different sexual and gender identities and clear advice about consent”.

Age verification

In the report’s discussion and recommendation of age verification, it raises concerns about the impossibility of an infallible system, noting that “it is clearly impossible to provide perfect verification, particularly if a child uses a parent’s credit card or ID”. The report does, however, advocate for AV as a potential solution to the Government’s problem.

With specific reference to social media services, the report notes that a useful starting point might be to “discuss age verification requirements with platforms such as Twitter or Tumblr which do support the sharing of adult content”.

Addressing advertising, the report notes that “ as a starting point, the ASA should ensure that we can have confidence that UK internet companies are not serving adult-only advertisements to household devices used by children”. It notes that “it would be helpful to have more input from this sector that has so far been largely excluded from child safety discussions”.

Developing social norms

“There is often a tendency to think that because internet use exposes or facilitates problematic behaviours, these are technical problems, with a technical fix. The reality is of course that these are social problems with complex underlying roots and causes.”

In this section, the report offers some analysis of the fact that within society any potential harms of “pornography” are down to how people interact with the material and not as a direct result of the material itself. It also notes that “pornography is just one aspect of UK society where children are exposed to highly sexualised ideas and images of sexual inequality” and that pornography is not an isolated social phenomenon.

“Part of the resilience-building process may involve ensuring that all children develop the critical faculties to see beyond the surface of the various sexualised media they consume”. The report highlights the value of teaching media literacy to children, with a focus on the “‘fiction’ of pornography”.

Technical interventions

Here, the report offers some discussion of potential technical solutions, “with most obvious opportunities in the areas such as filtering, ad-blocking and behavioural profiling”.

It notes the systems in place to provide ISP-level filtering for adult content, and identifies some of the pitfalls of them (“under and over-blocking”).

The report talks about encouraging the take-up of ad-blocking systems for parents, given the number of children who report seeing sexualised content through advertising. It also notes that sexual advertising could be served more discriminately by getting advertising companies on-board. As advertising companies already conduct extensive profiling, they could be required to serve only “family friendly” advertisements to computers which it has identified may be shared by a family, or in use by children.

Information rights

The report highlights that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises that children also have free expression rights, and thus any intervention to restrict pornography comes with a duty to ensure that overzealous restriction does not occur, spilling over into valuable learning resources such as sexual health sites or sites and forums which provide space to talk about difficult issues of sexual development, identity and experiences.

It also notes that “ultimately, we must ensure that children have the right to express themselves sexually, to explore and communicate without ever-present oversight”.

Unintended consequences

The report notes that the structure of the internet as malleable and lacking central command makes it “difficult for states to control the actions of their subjects online”.

It notes that technical ‘work-arounds’ are likely to be available for almost any interventions that governments may choose to apply. “It is important to consider what the actions of frustrated teenagers might be if their desired access to pornographic web content is hindered by stronger filtering. If ever more rigorous filtering of home content makes teenagers and young people feel overly-surveilled, then there is a risk that they will just turn to other access routes which are far harder for parents or carers to detect.”