The U.K. today said that as part of the Online Safety Bill, it might make it a requirement that all pornography websites perform “robust checks” on the age of their users.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because a similar bill was discussed back in 2017 as part of the Digital Economy Act. At the time, the government said any website failing to create stringent age verification measures could find itself blocked from the internet. It never happened, for the main reason that privacy campaigners made a fuss.

It seems the country wants to have another go, writing the legislative draft as part of the more far-reaching Online Safety Bill. The draft states that consumers of porn might use their credit or their passport to verify their age, or even go through a third-party service. Any websites that don’t conform could be fined up to 10% of their annual revenue or face being blocked in the U.K. On top of that, owners of the sites could face legal action.

“Parents deserve peace of mind that their children are protected online from seeing things no child should see,” U.K. digital minister Chris Philp said in a statement. “We are now strengthening the online safety bill, so it applies to all porn sites to ensure we achieve our aim of making the internet a safer place for children.”

Although such a bill doesn’t meld with many privacy campaigners’ convictions, advocates of children’s safety online have for a long time been saying that it is just too easy for kids to get access to porn. Statistics do show that young people watch or at least have watched such content, with campaigners saying it gives them an unrealistic view of sex.

Until now, the Online Safety Bill asked for age verification for sex-related websites only when they made money from it, such as the immensely popular OnlyFans website. However, not everyone thinks a more stringent law will have many benefits.

“There is no indication that this proposal will protect people from tracking and profiling porn viewing,” Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group told the BBC. “We have to assume the same basic mistakes about privacy and security may be about to be made again.”

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