Jim Killock, the executive director of the Open Rights Group, criticises the government’s plans to tackle children’s exposure to pornography on the internet by telling us that they will put the UK in the same bracket as Turkey and Saudi Arabia (Pornography sites face UK block under enhanced age controls, theguardian.com, 19 November).
If that were true – which it isn’t – we have been there since at least 2002, when the court of appeal made clear in R v Perrin that, absent age verification, pornography publishers on the internet were liable to prosecution.
However, since that decision there have been no cases, because all of the offending sites are based overseas. The government proposals are therefore simply a practical and pragmatic attempt to make it possible for our pre-existing laws to be enforced.
They will not interfere with any adult’s right to view pornography but they may detain someone for a few seconds while they prove they are over 18. A familiar and not a major hardship.
John Carr
London
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