In July 2025, pornoholics in the UK woke up to the nightmare of their lifestyle. The government had implemented ID and selfie-based verification to access porn sites. Under new rules tied to the Online Safety Act, anyone accessing pornography must verify their age using a government ID or selfie-based scan.

The government says this protects children from harmful material, but it marks a major shift in how personal and intimate data is collected and controlled. This raises an important question in the realms of internet usage in the UK - is this too much? According to Ofcom’s 2023 Online Nation report, about 14 million UK adults viewed online pornography that year which was roughly 29% of adult internet users, and only around 2% were under 18.

Asweeping verification regime is now imposed on everyone to address the actions of a small minority. Protecting children is vital, but the scale of this response feels disproportionate. Each verification creates a record linking real identities to private viewing habits.

The scale of this response feels disproportionate

Even if data is encrypted, it can still be breached or misused. Such leaks could expose people’s sexual preferences, while state or corporate misuse could lead to discrimination or blackmail. Once this infrastructure exists, expanding its use for “security” or “public interest” or “national interest” becomes dangerously easy.

Pornography is a convenient testing ground. Few will publicly defend it, allowing government and tech firms to normalise digital ID checks without serious resistance. Today it’s porn; tomorrow it could be political or foreign news labelled “sensitive.” Requiring identification to access legal content sets a precedent that threatens free expression and online anonymity.

The debate is often framed as a choice between child safety and privacy. That’s false. Privacy-preserving verification already exists: independent age tokens, zero-knowledge proofs that confirm adulthood without identity disclosure, and strict deletion of verification data.

These protect children and adults without building permanent databases of personal preference. Perhaps, the UK can learn a thing or two from France in this context where they have used double-blind verification methods for giving access to porn. In this method, the verification agency and tool do not know and retain the data of the end user.

Protecting minors should not mean treating every adult as a potential offender. The government’s current approach risks creating a “database of targets” one that endangers privacy far more than it safeguards children. A proportionate policy would prioritise minimal data collection, independent oversight, and privacy-by-design technology.

Otherwise, this small step toward digital safety could become a giant leap toward digital surveillance.