Easy access to online pornography is fuelling sexual assault in schools, a Government minister has said.
Digital minister Chris Philp said adult websites will soon be legally required to verify the age of their users to ensure they are 18 or over.
Mr Philp said the proposals would be part of strengthening the draft Online Safety Bill, currently going through Parliament.
“We are very concerned that large numbers of children are accessing online pornography,” Mr Philp told Radio 4’s Today Programme.
“The police have said to us they are concerned one of the things fuelling the increase in sexual assaults amongst school age children is the prevalence and the easy accessibility of online pornography.
“That is why it is so important we take firm action on this issue, something that parliamentarians have been calling for and children’s charities.”
The new rules would mean websites could have to use secure age verification technology to confirm a user possesses a credit card and is therefore at least 18, or a third-party service to confirm a person’s age.
Ofcom would be in charge of policing the websites to make sure age verification takes place.
The regulator could fine up to 10 per cent of annual global turnover or block the site in the UK, while bosses of such sites could be held criminally liable if they fail to co-operate with Ofcom.
However, some charities and opposition politicians said the proposals did not go far enough.
Andy Burrows, head of child safety online policy at the NSPCC, said: “It’s right the Government has listened to calls to fix one of the gaps in the Online Safety Bill and protect children from pornography wherever it’s hosted.
“Crucially, they have also acted on our concerns and closed the ‘Only Fans loophole’ that would have let some of the riskiest sites off the hook despite allowing children access to extremely damaging material.
“But the legislation still falls short of giving children comprehensive protection from preventable abuse and harmful content and needs significant strengthening to match the Government’s rhetoric and focus minds at the very top of tech companies on child safety.”
Alex Davies-Jones, Labour’s shadow minister for tech, gambling and the digital economy, added: “We need strict age protection rules, while tightly regulating age-verification tech to ensure they are not being used to collect unnecessary personal data and to protect people’s privacy online.
“Ultimately the Tories’ persistent delays on online safety legislation means that another generation have grown up with access to harmful content online - they can and must do better.”
