Digital Economy Bill set to become law in the UK

After passing the Investigatory Powers Bill earlier this month, the British parliament has now approved the Digital Economy Bill. The bill includes provisions on access to digital services, digital infrastructure, intellectual property, digital government, and online pornography. The latter part, which aims at preventing access to pornography for people younger than 18 years old, has been subject to intense debate. Apart from forcing websites to add age verification checks, it also puts in place rules to ban ‘videos depicting unusual practices from adult websites’. The law has been criticised both by free speech advocates and security experts, the former claiming that the law is too restrictive, the latter that it will not prevent pornographic material on non-adult websites.