Call For Action To Protect Children From Porn Online

New research published by The Authority for Television On Demand (ATVOD) highlights the scale of underage access to adult websites and calls for further Government action to protect children from exposure to hardcore porn online.

At least 44,000 primary school children accessed an adult website in one month alone – one in 35 of six to 11 year-olds in the UK going online.

And 200,000 under-16's accessed an adult website from a computer. This is one in 16 children in that age group who went online in the same month.

The research tracked the actions of children and teenagers using the internet from a desktop or laptop in December 2013.

One in five teenage boys under 18 going online were clicking on porn websites from PC's, and one adult site – which offers free, unrestricted access to thousands of hardcore porn videos – attracted 112,000 of the teenagers.

Research published by the video on demand regulator, the ATVOD, provides the most authoritative picture yet established of the exposure of children and young people to 'R18' material. 'R18' is the classification of the strongest video pornography permitted in Britain and covers content which, on a DVD, can be found only in a licensed sex shop or cinema and is restricted to buyers 18 or over. It portrays a range of real, rather than simulated, sex acts.

Sample sizes for the youngest children (six – 11) are relatively small and figures for this age group should be treated with caution as they may exhibit large changes month to month. However, at least 473,000 children between the ages of six and 17 accessed an adult internet service, mostly offshore – one in ten of young people that age who went online.

Most of the major offshore adult services are unregulated and allow free, unrestricted access to hardcore porn to visitors of any age – this includes 23 of the 25 adult websites most commonly accessed from the UK. In contrast, UK services are required by ATVOD to put the videos and stills beyond the reach of children, behind access controls and age verification systems. The regulator follows a precautionary policy, accepting that R18 content "might seriously impair" the young – the test for statutory protection under a European Directive.

We do not advocate censorship," said ATVOD chair Ruth Evans.

"There is nothing in the ATVOD Rules which interferes with the right to provide sexually explicit material to an adult online. But pornography is a product which is produced and designed for use by adults, not children. That is why the industry that makes and sells it calls itself 'the adult industry'. There cannot be any justification for UK providers of sexually explicit pornographic material to make such images available to under 18s. The law requires that UK on demand services keep such material out of reach of minors and we are committed to ensuring that UK providers of video on demand services comply with the statutory rules. But we have no control over services that come from outside the UK."

(CVS/CD)