Mark’s comments have been reproduced below with kind permission.
Click here to read the article in Metro: Step-family porn is being banned in the latest crackdown on X-rated content
Mark Jones, online safety expert and partner at law firm Payne Hicks Beach, agrees, saying it creates an ‘complex’ issue for authorities, as the definition included in the Sexual Offences Act ‘is not itself straightforward’.
‘In reviewing potentially offending material, the police will now have to consider, for example, whether pornographic material depicting step-siblings concerns persons who live or have lived together, as well as whether one participant is or has regularly been involved in caring for the other,’ he tells Metro.
And since ‘such context is unlikely to be expressly alluded to in content of this nature’, enforcement could become something of a minefield.
Beyond this, Mark claims ‘perhaps the most fundamental problem’ with the legislation is that viewers will do what they did to circumvent the Online Safety Act’s age restrictions: use tools like VPNs to access content that’s illegal in this jurisdiction, but legal in others.
‘We see time and time again, that technology outpaces legislation,’ he adds.
It’s not inconceivable to assume porn producers may look for ways around this rule too — and if a video featuring simulated step-incest has a caveat that makes it clear the characters have never lived together, where does that leave law enforcement?
While the final practicalities haven’t yet been decided (the Government is expected to set out its position when the bill returns to the Commons in April), Mark argues that its ‘admirable aim must be balanced against practical considerations regarding the reality of enforcing laws against the production or possession of such content.’
He continues: ‘In so far as possible, legislators should aim for robust simplicity, so as to make offences as straightforward as possible for an already stressed police force and CPS, to prosecute.’
For further information, please contact Mark Jones or your usual contact in the Dispute Resolution Department or, alternatively, telephone on 020 7465 4300
