Labour won’t scrap Online Safety Act despite 400,000-strong petition

Nearly 404,000 adults want the right to look at pornography online without the need to upload a scan of their passport.

Well, kind of. A petition calling on the government to repeal the Online Safety Act has garnered thousands of signatures in only days.

The sweeping law introduced age verification requirements for pornography sites last week.

If firms don’t comply, the media regulator Ofcom can fine them up to £18million or 10% of a firm’s global turnover, whichever is greater.

Alex Baynham, who created the petition, said the scope of the bill is ‘far broader and restrictive than is necessary in a free society’.

He wrote: ‘We think that Parliament should repeal the act and work towards producing proportionate legislation rather than risking clamping down on civil society talking about trains, football, video games or even hamsters because it can’t deal with individual bad faith actors.’

Responding to the petition yesterday, the government said it has ‘no plans’ to scrap the act.

Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle, said on X that those who want to repeal the Online Safety Act are ‘on the side of predators’.

Why are people against the Online Safety Act?

The act says that content aimed at children that promotes suicide, self-harm and eating disorders must be restricted.

Many pornography services have complied with the act, Metro found. Some require users to upload scans of their passports or have their credit cards checked through private verification companies.

But critics say the legislation is too vague and far-reaching, and that non-pornographic websites may be caught in the crossfire as a result.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has said that unless the website is made exempt, it would likely be barred under the law.

Baynham also pointed to how the bill’s broad wording easily covers hobby forums, which may not have the funds to comply with the act.

Ahead of the law change, the admin of a community hamster care forum said age-verification tools would cost them ‘£200 a month’.

They added: ‘It would have meant removing the option for direct messaging. Restricting the forum to over 18’s. Additional moderators. And a lot of other complicated things.’

While the founder of a small London cycling group said the discussion board won’t survive the change, as the act ‘simply does not care that this site and platform is run by an individual’.

Tech and privacy experts Metro spoke with have voiced concerns that the law may open the floodgates to cybercrime, too.

Andrew Smith, a cybersecurity expert at Kyocera Document Solutions UK, questioned how safe the passport scans and age-checked selfies are with verification firms.

‘Whilst many services claim they do not collect or retain data for a minimum period, data is still collected at the point of transfer,’ he told Metro.

‘With the increasing prevalence of cybercrime, there is a risk of data breaches occurring, which can severely impact privacy.’

With fewer options, some users may instead load lesser-known websites that are common targets of personal data thieves, David Ruiz, a senior privacy advocate at the antivirus software company Malwarebytes, warned.

‘We have also discovered cybercriminals placing malicious ads on more notable adult websites, including XHamster, and a bevvy of smaller sites, including xbabe, iceporn, and drtuber,’ added Ruiz to Metro.

‘While there’s plenty of discussion about how online age verification models threaten anonymity and privacy online, there’s also a real risk that these models will usher more users onto more dangerous websites.’

But some online safety campaigners believe the legislation doesn’t go far enough.

Ryan T Williams, co-founder of the social media agency Komi group, said the law needs to be tougher against virtual private networks (VPNs).

VPNs create a digital tunnel between your computer and a remote server to shield personal information, a tool Labour has said it will not ban.

Last Friday, when the act came into effect, there were more than 173,000 searches for VPN on Google, up from 29,000 a week before, according to trends data.

Speaking to Metro, Williams said: ‘VPN sites and sales will need policing to make this effective.

‘There needs to also be a bigger push on social media sites banning profiles and content, as adult content is easily shared on platforms where ID would not be required.’

Robin Tombs, the CEO of the age-verification tool, Yoti, told Metro that age checks help young people feel safe.

‘We’re proud to be protecting children online and introducing people to privacy-first age solutions – because online safety shouldn’t come at the cost of privacy,’ she added.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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