In light of the news that adults may be forced to buy a £10 ‘porn pass’ from newsagents to access X-rated movies ‘anonymously’, David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab commented below.
David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab:
“Like most people, I believe that access to such material should be restricted to adults only – the problem lies in enforcing this.
On one hand, tech-savvy young people will look for ways to get round restrictions, such as VPNs, proxies or even the dark web. On the other hand, adults who wish to access such material will face the risk of (a) a data breach (of the provider holding the personal details used to verify their age) that puts their data in the public domain, or (b) phishing scams from criminals masquerading as the legitimate agency responsible for holding such data. Users that are entrusting private information into the care of a website should be safe in the knowledge it is kept in a secure manner and all companies who handle private data have a duty to ensure its safety.
The ’porn pass’ certainly deals with the issue of data leakage. However, it doesn’t necessarily solve the enforcement problem. After all, there have been concerns for many years about vendors selling goods (cigarettes, alcohol, pornography) to people who are underage.”
