Sold a bill of goods: British government officials have admitted for the first time they will be unable to enforce the “porn block law” if browsers such as Firefox and Google Chrome roll out DNS encryption.
The acknowledgement comes as senior representatives of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) privately told British news outlet Daily Star Online they believe the porn block law could be delayed.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that Mozilla Firefox is thought to be pushing ahead with the roll out “DNS encryption”, despite government “concerns” they and ISPs will be unable to see what website we are looking at and block them.
“[If encryption] led to unlimited access to harmful content, then that could be problematic.”
Adam Kinsley, Director of Policy at BSkyB
Speaking at the Internet Service Providers Association’s Annual Conference last week, Mark Hoe, from the government’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said they would not be “able to block” websites that violate the porn block and enforce the new law.
He said: “The age verification measures… although those are not directly affected [by DNS encryption] it does effect enforcement of access to non-compliant websites.
“So, whereas we had previously envisaged that ISPs would be able to block access to non-compliant sites, [those] using DNS filtering techniques don’t provide a way around that.”
In an official statement, however, a government spokesman told Daily Star Online the law would come into force in a couple of months, as planned, but without explaining how it would enforce it.
