Porn sites must age-verify British users starting July 15

Enlarge / British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks in Brussels on April 11, 2019.

The United Kingdom's ban on underage access to porn will take effect on July 15, the government announced on Wednesday.

"Adult content is currently far too easy for children to access online," Digital Minister Margot James said. "We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online, and these new laws will help us achieve this."

The government is implementing the terms of the Digital Economy Bill that passed the UK parliament in 2017. Under the law, commercial porn sites will be required to verify that a British user is over the age of 18 before allowing him or her to access pornographic material. British censors will also have the power to ban "extreme" online pornography, which includes some types of violent sexual content as well as content that involves sex acts with corpses or animals.

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