UN Special Rapporteur: Age verification checks could breach human rights

David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of expression, has warned against age verification checks to prevent children from accessing online pornography. The checks have been created at the end of 2016 by the UK government. Kaye expressed his concerns that ‘age-verification provisions give the Government access to information of viewing habits and citizen data’, which could breach ‘international law’ and might lead to hacking or blackmail. The British Department for Culture, Media and Sport responded that ‘This Government is proud to be putting in place robust measures to keep children safe from harmful pornographic content on the internet’.