porn passport

The digital rights group Electronic Frontiers are credited with giving this name to the regulations and controls being suggested by the government  to prevent children from accessing pornography online.  These controls, which are meant to limit access not just to pornography but also to gaming and social media (another portal to pornography), are based on age verification.  So associated terms which will become familiar to us all are age-gating and age token.

Age-gating is a technical protection method which requires a visitor to a website to verify that they are adults by entering their age or birthdate.  The main advantage to this system is that it is easy to install and run.  The main disadvantage is that it is so easy to get round it by lying.

A digital age token is issued after some verification of age has been produced.  This token can then be produced on request at any site using this system so that, once you have set up your token, you don’t need to verify your age again.